


Young Warrior (Full version)

by Fabulanon



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alien Character(s), Alien Planet, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), Inhumans (Marvel), Original Alien Species - Freeform, Original Mythology, Original planet, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-20 06:43:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 45,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16550876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabulanon/pseuds/Fabulanon
Summary: A story about a young, inhuman girl who gets involved with S.H.I.E.L.D.. At first, she doesn't look like much, but the team quickly discovers that she could make a great addition to the team. She has pyrokinetic powers, amazing battle skills, and more secrets than they could have ever imagined...





	1. The girl on fire

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This is the first story I've ever written and uploaded here. I never even meant to write this, to be honest... It was just a story that I was carrying around, and one day I just thought I'd write it down. I expected it to be just a couple of pages, but the inspiration kept coming, and I ended up with an entire book...
> 
> Anyway, I just want to know what you guys think. Don't be afraid to give some critical reviews. I want honest opinions and tips. Don't worry, I can take it ;).
> 
> If you look at the story, you can divide it into several parts.  
> Chapter 1 to 6 are part 1: Introduction of the main characters, some backstory, and setting.  
> Then chapter 7 to 12 are the first main storyline.  
> Chapter 13 to 17 the second.  
> At chapter 18, the last, and the biggest storyline starts, with the big finale, plot twists and reveals.
> 
> Side note: The main character of this story, who goes by the name of Nikki, is a complete original work of fiction. A couple of other characters I also made up myself. However, because I started having more characters than I could keep track off, I decided to limit the S.H.I.E.L.D. characters to the ones in season 1.
> 
> This is a completely original story, though I have taken inspiration from various other sources. The characters will sometimes reference things from the show, but this is an alternate universe, so there's no real timeline you can follow that corresponds to the original show.
> 
> I DO start the story somewhere in the original series. The story starts in the start season 2, after Simmons has been found out to be a mole in Hydra, and she has to flee. She escapes in a different way, and Bobbi doesn't exist in this story (sorry. It were just to many characters :( )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, there may be many references and quotes to other fandoms, and the story might drift off at times in backstory or dialog. If that's annoying, please tell me, and I can trim it down a bit.  
> Also also, I don't know if I can still change it, but if someone knows a better title, please tell me. I had to come up with this last minute, it is late, and I'm tired XD, my inspiration was dead.

It was a lovely, sunny day. All throughout the streets, people were happily walking along, and the terraces were full of people chatting and drinking in the beaming sunlight. Not a single person knew of the drama that was taking place, not far away.

Because there she was. Running through the Hydra headquarters, running from the guards that were chasing her. Jemma Simmons, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D had been working undercover, to try and find out what Hydra was planning next, and she had been discovered. She was all alone, unarmed, and had nowhere to run. Surely, this was the end.

She ran through the hallways, when her worst fear was realised, and she had run into a hallway with a locked door at the end. She was cornered, and the two guards were getting closer.

But the first person to come around the corner wasn’t a guard. It was a girl. A teenage girl, of about 15 or 16 years old, Simmons estimated. Her golden-brown hair was falling just below her shoulders, and her face looked young and playful, but beautiful and mature at the same time. Her bright, blue eyes looking cold and menacing. She slowly walked down the hallway towards her, and the soldiers were close behind. The soldiers took out their guns and pointed them at the two women. “Who the hell are you?” They demanded of the girl, but she didn’t flinch. She took out a knife with her left hand, and with her right hand, she forcefully pushed agent Simmons to the wall, knife against her throat. “Don’t worry, I’m with you.” she spoke coolly with her soft, melodious voice. “I’m subject 23 from the inhuman department.” She spoke without breaking her gaze on agent Simmons, staring into her eyes with a cold gaze. “My handler decided that maybe it was time I made myself useful. Don’t worry, you can lower your guns, I have everything under control.” The guards looked hesitant but did not lower their guns. The girl continued. “What did you expect?” Now speaking directly to the woman she was still pushing firmly into the wall. “Did you actually believe that you could spy on us, and get away with it?” At this point, the guards slowly lowered, and started to put away their guns, but the girl wasn’t finished yet, as she moved closer to agent Simmons. Tears started to roll down her face, as the knife was drawing a slight amount of blood. “Please…” She begged. “Don’t do this.” But the girl dismissed her, pushing the knife slightly deeper into her skin to silence her, and continued. “Either you are really brave, or really foolish… But either way, this is funny… Do you know what else is funny?” Her face was now directly in front of agent Simmons’. She was terrified. What could have happened to this poor, young girl that made her so willing to hurt someone? To make her so evil? She had now moved her mouth next to Simmons’ ear, and whispered with her soft voice “I am not actually left-handed.”

This comment struck Simmons as quite odd, and the girl moved her head back, so that they were facing each other again. The dark, evil look in her eyes was gone, and Simmons noticed a slight smirk on her face, as she winked. Simmons took a closer look and noticed that she was holding the knife with her left hand, quite clumsily, and had her right hand free, and on the side of the guards. The girl spoke again, but quietly, and with barely moving her lips. “Don’t... flinch…” Her eyes darted to her right, to where the soldiers were standing, and who had now put away their guns, waiting for the girl to deliver the prisoner to them. But before anyone could realise what happened, the girl had jerked up her right hand, and swung it to the guards, sending a massive fireball to one of the guards, before spinning around, while quickly placing the knife to her other hand, and throwing it into the throat of the other one. Both were now lying on the floor, and it was clear that they were not going to get up again.

Agent Simmons had slid down the wall, onto the floor, where she was now sitting, looking shocked and horrified at the display. The girl walked over to the bodies, and knelt beside them, gently closing their eyes. She then picked up one of the guns, walked back, and handed Simmons the gun. “You okay?” She asked kindly. “Sorry about…that.” She said guiltily while pointing at the blood dripping from Simmons’ neck. The girl ripped of a piece of her sleeve and handed it to her to stop the bleeding. Agent Simmons finally managed to utter “Ehm, well, thank you, I suppose. I’m fine, but what the hell is going on? Who are you? You’re a pyrokinetic?” The girl offered her hand and pulled Simmons back to her feet. “My name is Nicole, but you can call me Nikki. Hydra captured me a few months back, as they were trying to recruit me for my inhuman powers. Whatever you did to anger these people, it distracted them, and I took advantage of the situation to escape my cell. After that, I just thought I’d return the favour.” Simmons was stunned. “Wait, so you don’t know who I am either? You are not working for S.H.I.E.L.D?” Nikki looked back at her, with an eyebrow raised. “That’s the people you’re working for then?” But before she could finish her sentence, the alarm was raised, and her expression changed. “Oh, right. We were being chased by these Hydra people. Forgot about that for a second… Let’s save the chitchat for later and just get the hell out of here, okay? Just stay close.” Simmons grabbed the gun a little tighter and nodded.

They carefully walked through the halls, Nikki carefully looking around corners to make sure the coast was clear. She seemed so calm, and collected, and was completely focused on the task at hand: escaping. At one point, there were some guards that were coming up in the hallway they wanted to enter. Nikki stopped at the corner, her back against the wall, and gently pushed Simmons besides her, also against the wall. She put her right hand in the air, and slowly started to draw circles with it. At first, Simmons thought that she was trying to signal something, but then, a whirlpool of fire appeared before them. Nikki then shortly flicked her hand to the side, pointing to the hallway, and the fire whirl moved down the path, taking down the guards. The fire disappeared, and they entered the hallway. Simmons followed her closely behind, wondering about the strange girl. What caused her to have such amazing battle skills? And how was she still so calm? But at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel some admiration for her, and how she kept gently closing the eyes of her fallen enemies. Her kindness and compassion being her strongest traits.

As they were nearing a big room, she suddenly turned around and whispered “Okay, the exit is just around this corner, but there are guards everywhere, probably to make sure that we can’t get out. I will distract them, then you make a run for it okay?”        
“Wait. Then what about you? You can’t take on all those guards on your own!”  
Nikki’s expression now darkened, as a glimpse of anger now showed in her eyes. Calmly, but firmly she said, “Don’t ever tell me what I can and cannot do.”   
“Well, I’m sorry.” Simmons replied sarcastically. “I just want to know what the plan is.”    
“The plan is to move towards the exit, and then keep going.”  
The anger in Nikki’s eyes faded again, and her expression softened, as she gave out a little sigh.     
“Just trust me okay? Stay here, and when they are all focused on me, make a run for it. Use that gun if you have to, but try not to, it could attract the attention of other guards.”           
And with that she entered to room. She just looked at the guards and shouted, “Hey!”, before immediately taking shelter behind a stack of wooden boxes, as a rain of bullets was fired her way. She held her breath, put up her hands, and walked to the edge of the room, surrendering. The guards surrounded her in half a circle, enclosing her with the wall on the other side. The pathway was now free for agent Simmons, but she hesitated. How was Nikki going to get out of this alive? She decided to sprint to the other side of the room anyway and hid outside. But she did not want to leave without the girl that risked her life to save hers. And thus, she hid, as she looked upon the girl, surrounded by 5 heavily armed guards.

Nikki then started to talk, and Simmons felt her heart drop. What was she planning? Was she really going to just talk her way out of this?  
“There you go! You got me!” She said smiling triumphantly. “I suppose I shall go back-”       
“SHUT IT! “The only place you will be going is hell!”    
Nikki tilted her head slightly to the side.         
“But why haven’t you just gone and shot me then?”    
Simmons was torn. What was she doing? She was surrounded, and she was just taunting them? She had to go and help, but she had promised to do as she said. The guards however, stayed silent, and this was when Simmons realised what Nikki was trying to do. Say what you will, even the fiercest soldiers would be troubled if they had to murder an unarmed, surrendered child. And Nikki knew this. The guards were confused, and she was playing in on that, changing the expression on her face to look younger, and more innocent. Until after a long silence she played the most stupid, and simple trick that anyone could think of. She slowly pointed to somewhere behind the guards, looking fascinated, and said “Hey look! A distraction!” To Simmons’ greatest surprise, they all bought it. Nikki quickly threw a few punches when the guards had their backs turned, knocking them out, and then ran outside, where Simmons’ looked at her, just speechless. “I can’t believe that that actually worked!” And Nikki gave her a little smile, while slightly raising her shoulders. “I know. It’s so stupid. But that’s exactly why it always works! No one ever expects someone to be so foolish to play a trick like this.” And they ran into the streets, out of sight from the Hydra facility.


	2. The asset

“So. I just saved your life, now please tell me what that life is.” Nikki and Simmons were walking through some busy streets somewhere far away from the Hydra facility.  
“I’m not sure I can tell you that, actually. That’s classified.”  
Nikki snorted. “Wow. I just saved your ass, and you can’t even tell me your freaking name.”    
They stopped.       
“Simmons. Agent Jemma Simmons of S.H.I.E.L.D.”       
Nikki took her extended hand. “Well. Nice to meet you Jemma.”  
“What about you then? Where did you learn to thrown knives like that? Or take on 5 guards at once?”                 
“Classified!”          
Simmons laughed. “Oh, so that’s how this is gonna go? You’re a sassy one, aren’t you?”   
“And proud to be one.”      
But then the smile left her face. “In all seriousness though. If you are working for a secret organisation that is fighting Hydra, I want to join! I may not look like much, but I have a third-degree black belt in karate, some talent for knife throwing, and I finished high school with top grades. I could have moved on to my second year in university by now if it wasn’t for all this ‘stuff’ happening. I can be of use, let me help!” She had stopped walking, and was now standing in front of Simmons, blocking her path. “I know that the only reason why you haven’t contacted any of your people to pick you up yet, is because I’m still here. But I’m not going anywhere, so you might as well take me with you.”          
“Oh. Sassy, AND stubborn then.”     
Simmons sighed. She pushed Nikki away and walked on. But Nikki didn’t give up and kept following her. After a while she turned around, frustrated. “Why do you want this so badly anyway? S.H.I.E.L.D. is dangerous. I am a trained agent, and I just almost died, and that had not been the first time by a long shot. Don’t you have parents to go to? It’s a lot safer there, and I’m sure that they will be missing you after you have been gone for months!” Both women fell silent. After a while, Nikki, the girl that had seemed so strong and composed the whole time, suddenly burst into tears, as she shouted back at Simmons. “No, I don’t. Both questions you just asked me, I can answer at the same time. Hydra killed my family. My father, my mother, and my sister. When they took me, they killed everyone, and burned down the house. All because they wanted me in their stupid inhuman army, and I refused to come willingly.” She turned around, hands in her hair, and tears streaming down her face. She stood there for a moment, and Simmons looked on, dumbstruck, as the girl fell to her knees, her face buried in her hands. Simmons knelt beside her. She wanted to take her into a hug, and comfort her, but she held back. After a while she broke the silent tears of the young, orphan girl, and said, “Alright then. But know that it is not up to me. You will have to go through screening, and director Coulson will have to decide if he lets you on the team or not.” And with that said, she took out her phone, and contacted the base.

It was dark, and Nikki could only feel two pairs of hands forcing her into a chair, before the bag was pulled from her head, and she could look around the room. She was sitting in a chair with all kinds of wiring attached to it, and her. The room was dark, with all kinds of machinery that she did not recognise. However, most intimidating were the two men, dressed in dark suits, which were standing before her. After a while, the first one spoke. “Hello. My name is Director Coulson. I apologize for the way you have been brought here, but you must understand that there are certain protocols that ensure everyone’s safety.” Nikki gave a slow nod, but kept silent, so the man continued. “Agent Simmons told us that your name is Nicole, and that you saved her life, back in the Hydra base, is that correct?” Again, Nikki gave but a slow nod. “She also told us you were a bit more talkative.” Coulson said raising his eyebrows slightly and giving a small smile. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to hurt you, we just want to ask you a few questions. After that we will decide if we ARE going to hurt you or not. Do you understand?” Nikki looked towards the door. “Where is the woman I met? Is she here as well?” “She is fine.” Director Coulson said a little firmly. “Let’s keep our focus on the current situation here, because, you are in our secret base, and we have no idea who the hell you are.” Nikki looked down at the ground. Now, the other man spoke. “I’m Agent Koenig. I am going to ask you a couple of questions. You are hooked up to a lie detector, so if you are untruthful, I will know.” Nikki took a deep breath and said “Alright. Sure. I have nothing to hide. Ask away.” The two men looked at each other, and Coulson said, “I will leave you to it then”, before he left the room.

Agent Koenig sat down next to the machinery, that Nikki now recognised as a bunch of screens, giving data of the lie detector. There were a lot of screens, so Nikki understood that this was the real deal. Koenig begun: “Okay, first question. Can you give me your full name?”  
“Nicole Lilith Amanda Dace.”            
“And how old are you?”     
“I will be 16, May second.”                
“And where are you from?”              
“Rotterdam, The Netherlands.”  
“Simmons told me you went to university? Aren’t you a little young for that?”    
“My parents always brought out the best in me. Made me work hard, pushed me to my limits. But then again, it was me, and my IQ of 146 that brought me this far in the end.”               
“And what field did you study?”       
“It was some sort of combination of a lot of things. Society. Design. But mixed with ICT and technology. Are these really all the questions you’re gonna ask me though? Because I might as well give you my resume.” She smirked.        
“Agent Simmons told us you were a smartass. Fine. Personality questions then. You are stranded on a deserted island, and there’s a box. What’s in the box?”             
Nikki thought about this for a moment before she replied.        
“I could give multiple answers to this. The sassy answer would be: ‘An ff-ing rescue team of course.’ If you would take away the island and just give me a box with a present though, I suppose a puppy would do… Or a wolf. A tame wolf then, but I just really like wolves-.”  
“Just give me an answer, please”      
“Fine. The Cornucopia.”      
Koenig fell silent for a moment and said. “Okay, fair point. That one is actually rather clever. Next question then. What is the difference between a rock and an egg?”        
“Smash ‘m against each other, the egg breaks, and the rock gets dirty.”                
“What is your alignment?”                
She fell silent for a moment, but then she answered: “Chaotic good.”    
“Yes?”     
“I consider myself to be a good person, but I won’t deny that I can get a little bit impulsive sometimes. Got me into a bit of trouble a couple of times…”

Questions like this kept coming for a while. Nikki alternatively gave either sassy or smartass answers, though a couple she answered seriously.

“I get your skills in karate, since that’s just a normal sport to practice, but where did you learn to throw knives? That’s an unusual skill that you just happen to have.”  
“Let’s just say that one time, I was at the wrong place, at the wrong time. There was an attack, at night. Some… thugs that were pestering some poor boy. At least, that was wat I thought at first. They were forcefully robbing him of all his stuff. I was… 8...? I was sort-of skilled at karate back then, so, I decided that I could save the poor bloke. And sure, if it weren’t for my karate-skills, I would be dead right now. See, somehow, I seemed to have missed the fact that they all had knives. They were so surprised that a little girl just straight out attacked them, that we managed to escape in the distraction, but that day I realised that karate alone wasn’t going to cut it. So, I took it on myself to learn some more self-defence skills. Every evening, alone in the park, I would just practice on throwing knives. On trees, don’t worry. And then I went to terrigenesis when I was 12. I can take care of myself.”

Until finally they arrived at the last question.

“Agent Simmons told us that Hydra killed your family, and now you want revenge. Is that why you are here?”     
Nikki closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “No… at least… I don’t know… I don’t… think so…” She looked down at the ground. When she looked back up, she looked more determined, but there was compassion and kindness in her eyes. “Revenge is evil. Hatred… is evil. I don’t want to let it consume me. I just want to help, to prevent others from sharing the same fate that I did. In Dutch we have a saying. “Wie goed doet, goed ontmoet.” Who does good, receives good. Sometimes you must make a sacrifice, and you won’t immediately know what you will personally get out of it… But that doesn’t make it any less important to make them… If anything, it only makes it more important. I have skills that allow me to do extraordinary things, but I have no purpose for it. Everything is gone, I’m alone…” A tear rolled down her face, and she flicked her eyes up towards the ceiling to try and prevent more from coming. She failed. “My… ultimate goal is that… I can do my part to make this world have a little less hurt. So… If I may ask a question in return… can S.H.I.E.L.D. help me do that?”          
“Thank you for your answers. That will be all for now. Now the director will decide over your fate.


	3. The kid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. I just want to ask all of you a question, because I need your opinion. I've looked over my work, and realised that we're in chapter 3 now, but apart from chapter 1, not a lot has happened. Most of the stuff I have uploaded right now are just monolog and backstory. I promise you that the action and story will soon return, these chapters are mostly so that I can introduce the character Nikki, and you know a bit more about her, but I still want to ask: Does the story go to slow?
> 
> I originally wrote this story because I really enjoyed writing it, so even after I had finished it, I went back and added in all kinds of other things, that don't necessarily add that much to the story. This is what made it so long.
> 
> I was thinking, maybe I can cut some parts out, and shorten the story a bit. It will be a long story (A full book), so I understand if some people don't feel like sitting through chapters like this. Maybe I can even post 2 versions of my story: The full book, and a shorter one that is focused more on the story, rather than all kinds of other things. That way, you can choose what you want to see.
> 
> Please tell me in the comments what you think, and I'll get to it! And for those who have liked my story: Thank you so much!!! That really made my day!

Director Coulson was standing in his office, looking at the big screens, on which the interrogation with Nikki had just been displayed. Now, however, it was just showing Nikki sitting in her chair in that empty room. He, agent Simmons, agent May, agent Fitz, and agent Johnson had just watched the entire thing, and now it was up to them to decide whether the girl would be let into the team, sent away, or executed, since she knew more then was good for her. Agent Koenig then walked into the room. “I’ve asked everything I wanted to ask. The decision is now up to you director.” But Coulson turned to agent Simmons instead.  
“What is your assessment of the situation, agent Simmons?”  
She got up and walked towards the screen. “Well, she did save my life. And she risked her own to do so, even though she didn’t even know my name. She is scary though. She held a knife against my throat to trick the guards into putting their guns away, but she was so convincing, I really thought that she was going to kill me. She even drew blood.”                
“Well I say we keep her!” Agent Johnson cut in. “I mean, she’s clearly on our side, she has some badass pyrokinetic powers, knife-skills, knows karate, and honestly, I really like her sassy attitude.”           
“Yeah, she’s a lot like you when we just met, Daisy.” Fitz said.  
“Well I think it’s a bad idea.” May suddenly said. “Phil, think about this. She’s a child, barely 16 years old. Are we really recruiting orphans now? Who cares what skills she has? We face death here every single day, and even I am scared sometimes. What if anything happens to her? Can we really guarantee her safety?”  
“Your objection has been noted, agent May, but I agree with Daisy. Well, sort of, anyway. She could be a valuable asset to the team, and she knows a lot about the inhuman army Hydra is raising. She could be of use.”       
Agent Koenig interrupted. “But can we really trust that this complete stranger will remain loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D? She told me that she has never helped Hydra, but according to the story she gave me, it just seems like she is against Hydra, not per se in favour of S.H.I.E.L.D.”  
Director Coulson thought about this for a while, before he slowly said, “I think we should just keep a careful eye on her. But at this time, with this war against Hydra, maybe we should consider every enemy of Hydra to be an asset. Agent Simmons, you brought her here, which makes her your responsibility. Will you show her around and keep an eye on her?” Simmons stood up. “Yes, sir.” And she walked out of the room.

The door opened, and agent Simmons walked into the room, were Nikki had now left the chair, and was just walking around, inspecting the equipment. She looked up. “Hey. You’re back. Are you alright? Back with your people?” Simmons walked a little further into the room but kept a small distance from the girl. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thank you for that, but aren’t you worried about yourself right now?” The girl turned her attention back to the equipment. “No.” she said quietly, while not looking at Simmons. “Well, I mean, yeah, I am, I suppose… I want to join you, but I don’t really care about the alternative at this point. There’s nowhere left for me to go anyway, and I don’t want to go into the system. I’m not looking for a new family yet, though some friends would be nice…” She looked up again. “So? What did they say? What’s going to happen to me now?” Simmons smiled at her. “Come on, let me show you around. I think the rest is freeing a room for you.”

After a small tour around the base, director Coulson walked up to them. “Nicole, I would like to see you in my office. Agent Simmons, I believe Fitz was looking for you.” “Understood, sir.” and she walked away. Coulson turned around and walked away, and Nikki followed closely behind. When they were alone in the room, Nikki was the first to speak. “First I want to thank you for letting me in. I promise that I won’t let you down.” But Coulson interrupted her. “Let me make one thing very clear. We don’t know who you are, but since we need all the allies we can get, I have decided to trust you. Do not betray that trust. Am I making myself very clear?” Nikki looked down at the ground. “Crystal.” Coulson continued, this time his voice a little kinder. “I just want to ask you some more questions about your time with Hydra. How did you end up there?” Nikki walked over to the table but didn’t pull out a chair. She sat down on the table, and pulled up her legs, seating herself cross-legged, resting her lower arms on her knees, like she was meditating. “They must have somehow found out about my powers. I didn’t use them all that often, but I suppose that one of them must have seen it sometime. They came to me one day. Told me that I could do extraordinary things with my ‘gift’. Offered me a job. They looked nice enough, but I didn’t trust them. And I didn’t want to abuse my powers like that anyway. So, I refused, went home, and believed that to be the end of it.” She fell silent, and closed her eyes, clearly trying to keep a straight face, but failing. “But it didn’t end there, did it? They came for you again.” Coulson asked. Nikki opened her eyes again but didn’t look up. She did give a small, almost imperceptible nod though. “They were at my house… And this time, they were a lot less friendly…”

_4 months ago…_  
_“Nicole, come down please. There are some people here who’d like to see you.”_  
_Nikki followed the sound of her mothers’ voice downstairs and walked to the front door. Her mother was standing next to the open door. Two men dressed in dark suits were standing outside. As soon as Nikki saw them, she froze. She didn’t recognise them, but she immediately knew why they were there. She quickly took a step back, but one of the man had already grabbed her right wrist._  
_“Mom, get out of here. Run!”_  
_Nikki twisted her right arm around, and grabbed the man’s arm, burning him. He let out a scream and let go of her. Nikki’s mother ran out of the hallway, back into the room, and Nikki tried to follow her, but the other man held her back._  
_“Mom! Call the police! Now!”_  
_The man that was holding her, wrapped his arm around her waist, and picked her up, dragging her away with ease._  
_“No! let go of me!”_  
_Her arms were pinned to her sides, and she couldn’t move them, and her feet were only kicking the air around her. She moved her head down, and sank her teeth into the man’s arm, drawing blood.     He let out a scream, but didn’t let go, and just dragged her back to the van._

_As she was being dragged away, she could just see the other man walking into the house, following her mother inside. She couldn’t see what was happening, but her heart dropped when she heard two gunshots.  
“Nooooo!” She shouted, but then the doors of the van closed, and it started to drive away. From the small widow in the back, she could just see her house, and the Hydra agent leaving it. There was a moment of silence, before there was a huge explosion, and the entire house burst into flames. Nikki desperately held out her hand, to feel the flames, and try to extinguish them from the distance, but she was too far away. There was nothing she could do, and she could feel her heart sink, and power fading, as tears rolled down her eyes. As the car drove off, the last thing she could see were the burning remains of her house, disappearing in the distance.           _

The last few words were barely audible, as she was choking on the tears that were now rolling down her face. She had pulled up her knees, and rolled herself in a tiny ball, hiding her face. All her fierceness and sass were gone. She was just a lonely, heartbroken little girl. It was heart-breaking to watch, but Coulson tried not to show it. After a moment of silence, the girl spoke again, this time stronger, and more determined. “But I got back at them for it.” She said with a small smile, which was halfway between sadness and joy. “I made them believe that I could barely control my powers. So they didn’t actually send me on assignments to kill people.” She gave a small chuckle. “No, I just wasted their time, as they were trying to teach me to control my powers. Trying to train me into a soldier, while I kept burning all their stuff and equipment. Accidentally of course.” She added with a wink. “I believe that at one point, I even burned some important files or something. Whatever it was, they were NOT happy.” She laughed. “I was like a _fire_ in their organisation. They could really use a _firewall_.” She laughed over her own stupid joke. “Yeah, it was hard, and they kept hurting me for everything I burned, but I did my duty for this world, so it was worth it.” Coulson spoke up again. “How can you be so calm about this. Aren’t you scared? Don’t you ever panic?”  
Nikki nodded. “Yeah. Of course I do. But in the end, I just found that panic isn’t going to get me anywhere. If something goes wrong in your life, there are two possible scenarios’. 1: You can do something about it. In that case, stop being such a wimpy little bitch, and just do it. Scenario 2: It’s out of your control, and there’s nothing you can do about it. In that case, why would you worry? You can waste all your time and energy mulling it over, but it will only make things worse for you. Instead, I just accept things the way they are, and try to make the best of it anyway. Yes, sometimes things hurt, but it’ll always be better than feeling nothing. And all the pain in my life, horrible as it is… _it’s still mine_. It’s a part of me, that makes me who I am… A person I love, and I am proud of. So, I embrace it, and from that point, any pain, either physical or metal, is just another thought or feeling. It doesn’t bother me anymore. And that is the power of positive thinking. _That_ … is PMA.”               
Coulson gave her a little smile.         
“You sound like you are ready to fight. If you want to help us take down Hydra, though, you will have to train hard. Agent May will help you with your battle skills, just karate is not going to cut it I’m afraid.” Nikki looked up again. “Can I also help in the lab? Jemm-, I mean, agent Simmons showed it to me, I think I can help there as well…” “That’s up to Fitz-Simmons to decide then. Either way, don’t underestimate how hard this is going to be. Now get some rest. I do have a lot more questions for you, considering Hydra’s inhuman-army, but there’s still plenty of time for that.” Nikki stood up and nodded. “Thank you.” After a moment of silence, she quickly added “Sir!” and held out her hand. Coulson shook it, before having her escorted back to her room.


	4. Settling in

Over the next couple of days, it quickly became clear that Nicole was there to stay. Every morning, she was training with Daisy and May, and though she had a lot to learn, even agent May was impressed by how easy she made it look when she stared throwing knives around. “Are you sure that you don’t want me to teach you how to shoot? You can’t just keep relying on knives.”   
Nikki shot her an angry look. “Never tell me what I can or cannot do.”  But May kept insisting. And Nikki kept refusing. “It makes too much noise. I prefer a bit more… finesse. And I can always throw fireballs around, so in a way I have unlimited ammunition.”      
“So you’re just planning on roasting everyone to death?” Daisy asked.  
Nikki gave a little giggle. “Well, if you build a man a fire, he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.” And she giggled, with fire twirling around her fingers.

And May and Daisy were not the only ones who were impressed by the strange young girl. Fitz and Simmons had given her a couple of assignments to see if she was just as clever as she pretended to be. Again, she still had a long way to go, and her intelligence came nowhere close to theirs, but she would sometimes join in conversations with them on subjects that the rest of the team couldn’t understand. And a couple of times, she surprised them. “Done!” She said triumphantly, and she laid a stack of paper on Simmons’ desk. She had been given a small biochemistry test. “Wait, already?” Simmons asked in surprise, as she picked up the test and skimmed through it. Nikki looked confused. “Yeah, why? Was this supposed to take longer?” Simmons looked at her. “Well, maybe I’d have been able to do this slightly faster than you, but I expected this to occupy you for at least three hours. It barely took you two.” Nikki rolled her eyes. “This feels like I’m back in high school... Anyway, can I go now?” Simmons nodded, and started examining Nikki’s work.

In her free time, she would make music on her laptop, and sometimes she played some songs through the speakers of the base to raise morale. Her voice was beautiful, and the music she made sounded really good, even though she didn’t have any instruments apart from her computer.

She fit in well with the team. After a while, she dropped her harsh and sassy attitude, and revealed a kind and sensitive nature. She somehow always seemed to notice when something was up and was always there to help if she needed to. She was quiet at times and would often retreat to her room to get some space, or she would just sit among the people quietly, observing. You could always talk to her if you were feeling down, and if she didn’t have time, she’d make it.

One thing that took some getting used to but was actually kind of sweet once you accepted it, was that she addressed everyone by their first name, rather than ‘agent’ or last names. “Hey, Nick, why do you do that?” Fitz had asked her one time. She looked up at him. “You realise that everyone here calls me Fitz, not Leopold, right? Then why do you keep doing it?” Nikki thought about this for a while. “I don’t know. I suppose it just feels weird to me to be so formal all the time. Yes, in school and such, I would always address teachers by their last name, and yet this just feels different… You’re my friend, and I feel like I should address you as such, instead of using some sort of codename or something…” The next time she saw him, she called him ‘Fitz’ for once, just to try it out. The time after that, it was back to Leo, and that was where it stayed.

Despite this though, she sometimes got quite mischievous, messing around with people, and playing pranks every once in a while. One thing she really liked to do, was sneak into the other’s rooms, and rearrange all the furniture. Not in a way that was harmful. She didn’t make a mess, made sure that no one lost any important stuff, and she didn’t snoop around, invading privacy. It was mostly for the reaction someone would give, if they walked into their room at night, to find everything reorganised.

One other thing she liked to do, was that she sometimes said things in Dutch, leaving everyone to wonder what she had said. Everyone had grown used to it, and it became a sort of game they played. Every time she had said something in Dutch, everyone would scream for a translation. Usually, she would give it, but sometimes, she would shake her head, and say with a mischievous look, “Trust me, that’s not worth translating…”

Moreover, it seemed like she had made it her personal mission to get Fitz and Simmons together.                  
“Hey, Nick, can you move over for a moment?” Simmons asked one time. She and Fitz had just been doing some things in the lab, and now wanted to leave, but Nikki was blocking the door.             
“Yeah, sure!” She said, but she didn’t move. “I’m just waiting for the traffic light.” She added.          
Fitz looked at her, confused as to what she meant.       
“How do you mean? What traffic light?”         
They heard laughing from the hallway, as Daisy approached, who had apparently overheard the conversation.         
“Oh my God, Nick, you can’t do that! You can’t be like that!”     
Nikki looked around at her and started to giggle.          
“Come on, Daisy! Don’t pretend you don’t agree with me!”       
She turned back to Fitz and Simmons. Simmons looked at her, confused as to what the joke was that she was clearly missing.  
“What are you talking about? What’s going on?”         
“Well, you tell me!” Nikki exclaimed, as she kept shifting her gaze from Fitz to Simmons. “For fuck’s sake, just make out already. Your traffic light gives me fucking epilepsy. It’s off, and on, and red, and green… You two are absolutely adorable together, and the cringe of watching you around each other, not doing anything, is just killing me!”               
Her expression showed how frustrated she was, as she let out a deep breath, somewhere halfway between a sigh and a frustrated groan.  
“Wait… you think that…” Fitz begun, stammering. Simmons continued on this. “No, that’s ridiculous! There’s nothing going on between us! We’re just friends!”        
Another silence fell over them, as Nikki continued shift her gaze between the two of them, eying them carefully.                
“Right…” She said, clearly not convinced. “Jemma. I love you. You’re an amazing person, and I have an immense amount of respect for you.”             
“Thank you-”          
“But you are a dreadful liar.”             
She stayed in the doorway, until Daisy finally pulled her out of the way.                 
“Hey!” She shouted, as Fitz and Simmons quickly left the lab and walked away.

When they were alone, Daisy let go of her again.          
“Come on, Daisy, I almost had them. Why did you do that?”      
“You’re going about this the wrong way. This isn’t going to work.”  
“Well what do you suggest then?”    
Daisy laughed. “Come on, let’s go!”   
And they left together.

Later that night, Fitz and Simmons were sitting in Simmons’ room together, just looking over some of the projects Nikki had made. “You know, she still has a lot to learn, but she’s really onto something here.” Fitz said, clearly impressed. “She’s a genius.” But suddenly, they heard something on the other side of the door. Fitz carefully moved over to the door and tried to open it, but he failed. “We’re locked in?” He asked confused, as Simmons walked over to him. He slammed his hand into the door. “Hey! Let us out!” But they got no response. At least, not until they suddenly heard a voice from behind them. Daisy had hacked into the laptop that had been standing on the table, but it wasn’t her voice they heard. “Thanks Daisy, I’ll take it from here.” They heard somewhere in the background. Nikki’s voice. The voice came closer. “Told ya I wouldn’t give up!” She said, laughing. She didn’t say anything else, but before they knew it, music played through the speakers.

It took a moment for them to realise what was going on, before Simmons rolled her eyes, and slowly said: “I think we’re going to be stuck here for a while…” She sat back down on the couch, annoyed. Fitz kept standing there for a moment, in silence, before he walked over to her. “Well, in that case, maybe we should make the best of it.” He offered his hand. Simmons looked up at him, before she took his hand and got up, and they danced to the music until nightfall.


	5. Inside Hydra

Two months after she took residence in the base, and trained for hours every day, Nikki finally got to join her first mission. She had told the team everything she knew about the inhuman-army that Hydra was raising, and the base itself. Now it was up to them to take back the base and save the captured inhumans… While she stayed in the base, waiting for their return.

“No, Nicole, that is my final decision!”           
He was just about to leave for the Hydra base when Nikki tried to appeal to him one last time.       
“Come on, Phil, please? I can help! I know I am only fifteen, but I can handle myself, I’m not made of glass! Melinda says that my combat training is going very well. AND I know my way around the base. AND I personally know some of the inhumans, so they might trust me! How are you going to convince them to come with you? Please tell me: #hoedan?”   
“For the last time, Nicole, it’s director Coulson to you, and her name is agent May. And I know that you’re not made of glass, but I don’t want to be responsible for you! You could die on a mission like this! I think you underestimate how dangerous this is going to be!”  
“No I’m not! Don’t you dare tell me what I can or cannot do!” Nikki stepped out in front of him and blocked his path. “Please… Let me help. If you don’t want to be responsible for me, let _me_ be responsible for me. I don’t have anything else to live for, and I just want to make a change in this world. I can’t do that if you’re going to keep me locked up in here forever…”             
A silence fell between them, as Coulson was reconsidering.      
“Please… _director_. Let me be of use. I won’t be in the way, I promise.”  
Another silence.   
“If you want to help, go to your room and stay out of trouble. That’s my final decision.”   
She stormed away angrily, and he could just hear her mumble, “Deja mooo. When you know you’ve experienced this bullshit before…”

As the Zephyr neared the Hydra base a while later, Coulson addressed the team one last time. “Remember the plan. We are here for the inhumans, that’s priority one. Get them to safety. Any Hydra agents you can take out are a nice extra, but the most important thing are the hostages!”         

The most important part of the mission was keeping quiet. If they managed to get in and out of the base quietly, they could make sure that no one got hurt.

Everything went according to plan. For the first part at least. They managed to sneak into the facility through a back door and were on their way to the containment cells where they held the inhumans. Along the way, they managed to take down a couple of Hydra agents with ICER’s so that they wouldn’t be noticed. Agent Simmons and Nikki had both tried their best to describe the base, so they managed to find their way around easily, and knew where they had to expect guards. Everything went very smoothly. The problems arose when they reached the cells.

“Who the hell are you?” One of the inhumans asked when he saw them.             
“Are you going to hurt us?”              
“We haven’t done anything wrong, I promise!”           
Everywhere, the inhumans panicked. Before they knew it, the alarm was raised. They had made too much noise.      
“Everyone, just stay calm, we’re with you. We’re here to get you out of this place, you have to trust us.” Daisy said calmly to try and calm them down. But her voice was drowned out in the chaos. Suddenly, the cells sprung open, and the inhumans stormed out. Some of them fled, others tried to attack the team. And above all that, there was no doubt that the Hydra agents were also approaching.       
“Enough!” A voice yelled through the room.  
Nikki was standing in the doorway. A couple of inhumans looked up at her, recognised her, and fell silent. But then another voice spoke from within the crowd.  
“Nikki?”  
They made eye contact, and Nikki ran over to the girl, taking her into a big hug.  
“Leah!”   
Leah was in complete contrast with Nikki. She looked strong and tough, where Nikki looked sweet and gracious. Her dark hair was braided back, her big brown eyes looked kind, but also determined and strong. She wore mostly black, but not per se in a way that made her look like a rebellious teenager. She was a fighter. A warrior.

But this moment was broken when Coulson spoke up again.    
“Nicole! What are you doing here? I thought I ordered you to stay in the base!”  
“Yeah, and it looks like it’s a good thing that I didn’t. How were you planning to get these people to trust you?”      
Leah looked up at her.        
“You know these people?”                
“Yeah, they’re the ones that got me out of here, and now they’ve come for the rest of you. Help me get everyone to calm down, we need to go. Now!”            
Leah nodded, and moved around the crowd to get people to listen. Nikki climbed up some of the bars so that everyone could see her, before she addressed the group.  
“Everyone, listen up! These are good people, they only want to help! If you don’t trust them, trust me! Everything is going to be all right, but we need to move!”         
Right then, the Hydra agents had reached the room, and moved in with guns raised. They were cornered.                
“Everyone! Get back to your cell, and no one needs to get hurt!” They demanded. It was silent for a moment, until Nikki shouted.           
“Leah, now!”         
A bright light went over the room, blinding the agents, and Nikki took advantage of the moment to take them out with her fire. The way was now free for them to escape. Nikki walked over to Leah, and high-fived her, Leah’s hands still glowing slightly by the light she had just emitted.      
“Just like old times!” She said happily.            
“Ready to kick some Hydra-butt?”   
“You bet I am!”     
“Come on then, we need to pick up the pace, this place will be swarming with guards soon.”          
And they ran out of the room, leaving the S.H.I.E.L.D. team behind to rally up the last inhumans.

When they had caught up with the duo, they were just taking out the last guards. They were a perfect team and knew exactly how to use their powers together. When they had cleared the last room, they ran over to each other, pulling each other into a hug, and then performed some sort of intricate personal gesture. It was like they were two halves of one brain.               
“We picked up that pace, brought it home, fed it some Oreos, told it a little story about how its mother didn’t love it, put it to bed, woke it up in the morning for school, sent it off with a packed lunch! Whoo!”                
Another high-five.               
“Did we just adopt it?” Leah asked, and she burst into laughter.


	6. The inhuman

“Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?” Coulson asked when they got back to the Zephyr. Some inhumans had thanked them and left, while other had joined them to go to the base. Leah was one of those people.        
“My name is Leah Pandargin.” She said, and she held out her hand. Nikki cut in. “We met each other during my time in the Hydra base. She was the one who made sure I didn’t give up fighting. We were making plans to escape, but we never got the chance.”             
“You did.” Leah said. But it didn’t sound resentful. She sounded glad.  
“I really wish that I could’ve taken you with me.”         
“Why, what happened?” May asked.              
Nikki took a deep breath.   
“You remember how I escaped? Jemma caused a distraction, and I managed to get out of my cell midst the chaos. Leah did too…”  
She looked at Leah, and the memories came back to her…

 _Two months ago…  
Nikki and Leah were in the Hydra base. A guard was standing in the doorway of the cellblock, keeping a close eye on them. Their cells were at the end of the block, and directly facing each other. With hushed tones they spoke to each other. “Are you alright?” Leah asked Nikki. She had just returned from training, and the guards had given her a hard time for burning the equipment again. Nikki lifted her shirt slightly, revealing a big bruise from where she’d been beaten. She carefully put her hand on it, and took a deep breath, resisting the pain. “I’m fine. It’s going to take more than that to break me. The fact that they were so angry only proves to me that I did something good. Overall, that makes this a successful day.” She gave Leah a half-hearted smile. But then they heard angry tones coming from the other end of the room, where the guard was standing. Another guard had joined him, and they were having a heated conversation, clearly panicked. And better yet, distracted. _  
_Leah and Nikki looked each other in the eye and knew that they were both thinking the same thing. They moved closer to their cell doors, and leaned slightly through the bars, waiting, and listening. It was too far away to hear everything they said, but they could make out the words ‘infiltrated’ ‘woman’ and ‘escaped’. The man that had been guarding them followed the other one out the room, as they continued their conversation even more quietly, but lost all their attention on the prisoners. Leah looked at Nikki and gave a short nod. Nikki put her hands on the lock of her cell, and warmed it up, melting the mechanism inside. She pushed the door open, careful to not make any noise, and moved over to Leah’s cell to let her out as well. Leah manipulated the light in the room, bending it around them, and leaving them practically invisible. By now, the guards looked back into the room, and noticed the two open cell doors. The first one took out his gun and waved it around the room blindly. “Reveal yourself!” But Nikki had already snuck up on him, and placed her hands on his face, roasting him from the inside. He let out a short scream, but before the other guard could react, he met the same fate. Leah stopped bending the light, and they became visible again. She was panting. “Jeez, Nick, I don’t think that I’ll be able to do that again. I’ve never held it for this long before, it’s draining.” Nikki closed the eyes of the fallen guards, before moving over to Leah, and wrapping her into a hug. “You did great. Now let’s get out of here while everyone is still distracted. I can’t see any more guards up ahead.”_

_They snuck through the base, but it wasn’t difficult to stay hidden. Like Nikki had said, all other guards were still distracted, looking for the woman that had infiltrated their base. They nearly reached the exit when suddenly a group of guards ran through the hallway next to them. They didn’t get spotted, as Leah used her powers again to render them invisible, but they could hear them talk. “You’ve got your orders!” The leader told the rest. “If you find her, don’t kill her. The boss has a couple of other things planned for her!” He gave a devilish grin and continued his way through the base._

_When they had left, Leah disactivated their invisibility again. She was panting even harder now, exhausted. “Come on, Nick. Let’s get out of here. We’re free!” But Nikki hesitated, looking down the hallway the guards had just ran into. “We can’t…” she said quietly. “It’s not right…” Leah looked at her, confused. “You want to go back?” Nikki kept switching her gaze from the exit, towards the hallway, clearly hesitating. Conflicted. “We would never have escaped if it wasn’t for the distraction that woman caused. And you heard what the guard said… Who knows what they will do to her when they find her? They could torture her or brainwash her for all we know!” Leah took a deep breath and put her hand on Nikki’s shoulder. “Then we won’t let it. I think we owe that to her, don’t you?” Nikki shot one last look at the door, and nodded, before they ran back into the base._

_Nikki and Leah quietly moved through the base. There were guards everywhere. Escaping had been easy, but now they had moved right into the lions’ den. They had to stay as quiet as possible, and stick to the walls, as guards kept running past them. Luckily, they couldn’t see them, as they were still under the cover of Leah’s powers, but she was growing increasingly more exhausted. She stopped, panting heavily, and whispered to Nikki: “Nikki… I can’t…-” But before she even got a chance to finish her sentence, she lost control over her powers, and they became visible again. Leah slid down against the wall. They were standing in the middle of a crowded room, and there were guards everywhere, that, naturally, had immediately noticed them. The first ones shouted and pointed their guns at them. Nikki managed to distract them and take out a couple of guards with her fire, but there were too many. Panicked, she formed a small wall of fire between them and the guards, protecting them, before she put her arm around Leah and hoisted her up. “Come on! Stay with me, Leah! We need to move!” But Leah refused. “Nick, I can’t… I’m too tired, I’ll only hold you back. Just go without me… You can still escape.” But before Nikki could respond, Leah put her left hand over her eyes, and used her other hand, and her last strength to blind the entire room. The guards dropped their guns and fell to their knees clutching their eyes. Nikki quickly took a gun and a knife from the guard that was closest to them and handed Leah the gun. “This won’t be in vain, Leah.” she whispered quietly, and she ran out of the room, hiding the knife under her shirt. She slipped between the blinded guards, and finally ended up in an empty room. Her head was racing, and her heart aching, but there was no time to stand still. Because there, from the doorway, she could just see a woman hastily running through the base, with two guards following closely behind…_

Nikki fell silent.     
“I’m so sorry I left you behind, Leah. What did they do to you after they recaptured you?”              
“It wasn’t pretty, but I could take it. They hurt me, but that only fuelled my hate for them, and now I got back at them for it. I just wanted to make sure that at least one of us got out, and it looks like you did. You even managed to save the woman we went back for. I don’t regret anything, Nikki.”  
She pulled her into another hug.      
“I’m just so glad you’re okay.” Nikki said, almost crying.            
“So, what now?” Leah asked, and Nikki looked up at Coulson.  
“If you want to be part of the team, you will have to go through screening, and you will have to work hard, this is not going to be easy. I think Nicole can tell you all about that.”     
Nikki rolled her eyes and sighed. “That I can… But don’t worry Leah, not everyone is as grumpy as Phil is.” She winked at her.               
“For the last time, it’s director Coulson to you!”          
“Sorry Phil.” She said, and she pulled Leah away to check in on the rest, still giggling.

Leah and Nikki were inseparable. They shared everything and made jokes that no one understood. And naturally, Leah had joined Nikki in her mission to get Fitz and Simmons together.              
“Great, now there’s two of them.” Fitz said mockingly to Simmons once. “I don’t think I’ll be able to handle two sassy teenagers running through the base.”          
Simmons laughed.              
“Come on, Fitz, you know Nikki, and you know there’s more to her than meets the eye, I’m sure the same counts for Leah. Besides, I think it’s really nice for her to have someone her own age around. I mean, I can talk to her just fine, but I’m still about 10 years older than she is, many of the jokes she makes are going way over my head.”  
“That’s fair.”          
There was a silence.            
“Well, now that Nikki’s busy, I thought that maybe we could… talk.” Fitz begun carefully.  
Simmons looked up, curious. “Talk about what?”        
“About… us.”        
Another moment of silence.             
“Oh.”       
“Would you… like to have dinner sometime? Somewhere else? Somewhere… nice?”         
“Yes, I’d like that.”               
More silence.        
“Did Nikki just win?”                          
“Yes, I think she did.”          
“Let’s just not mention this to her, okay?”     
“Agreed…”

But Simmons was proven right about Leah, and it turned out that there was more to her than you could see at first. She had a strong will and powerful personality but was fiercely loyal. Something that was shown especially when someone treated Nikki with less respect that she, according to her, deserved. It seemed like she had assigned herself as Nikki’s personal bodyguard, and did everything she could to protect her, both physically and mentally.     
“Wait, so your ‘boss’ is still refusing to let you on missions, just because you’re young?”  
“Yeah, the only reason I was with the team the day we rescued you, was because I snuck onto the plane. He even admitted that it would probably have been a total disaster if I hadn’t showed up, but he still won’t let me on the team!”              
“Okay, that’s it! I’m going to punch him!”      
Nikki giggled.        
“No! Come on, Leah, we talked about this. No punching people!”  
“But he is keeping you locked up in here! He’s treating you like a child!”               
Nikki looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “Leah. I _am_ a child.”  
But Leah just folded her arms.          
“Still doesn’t make it right.”              
Okay, fine! Just a tiny smack across the face then.” Nikki laughed. “But while you’re at it, can you just smack Leopold as well? Because I _know_ he asked Jemma out to dinner, and neither of them have admitted that to me.” She sighed. “What am I gonna do with them?”  
She laid down on the couch, resting her head on Leah’s lap.      
“Anyone else been bothering you?” Leah asked, sarcastically, and jokingly, while stroking her hair.                
“You mean, apart from you?”           
“Ommygosh! Nick!”            
Nikki was just able to get up and jump off the couch before Leah beat her with a pillow. Nikki picked up another one, and before they knew it, they started a full-blown pillow-war. All her thoughts and worries faded away, and or the first time in months, Nikki could finally be a kid again.   


	7. Anastasia

Time passed, and seasons went by, as Nikki finally became a full-fledged part of the team. After Leah had fought for her a million times, Coulson finally gave in, and let them both come on missions. They proved to be very useful, especially when they were put together. It was like they were psychic, as they always fought in perfect harmony.

After their last victory, Fitz, Simmons, Daisy, Leah, and Nikki decided that maybe it was time to relax a little, so they left the base for a lovely day of their own. They started off just walking through the streets, enjoying the happy chatter of the people surrounding them, and sitting down on terraces for some ice cream. “I always enjoy spending time with grown up people.” Nikki suddenly said to everyone’s surprise. “Yeah, they give me free food. Meer voedsel, meer beter.” “Translation!” Daisy demanded immediately. Nikki didn’t look up from her ice cream. “More food, more better.”   
Leah cut in. “Reminds me of point number 12: ‘She likes getting fat, just like Leah.’”           
Everyone looked confused, but Nikki explained.            
“I was feeling down once, so Leah made me a little list with all the good things about me. But it’s all things like this, so it mostly just makes me laugh.”    
“Wait… so you _want_ to be overweight?”         
“Well… the more you weigh, the harder you are to kidnap. Stay safe! Eat cake! Besides, I’m not fat. I’m like a pancake. Round and delicious...”  
Everyone laughed.                               
“Okay, so, Nikki, obviously, you speak Dutch and English. Do you speak any other languages?” Simmons asked.      
“Well, I can fluently understand Flemish, but that doesn’t count.”  
“Why wouldn’t that count?”              
Nikki looked at her, and said in a very matter-of-fact tone, “Because I’m Dutch. Oh, and I also speak some French.”                  
Daisy laughed. “Oh. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?”                  
Nikki looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know what that means, do you?”   
“Actually, no. What _does_ it mean then?”         
Leah laughed, and winked at Nikki.   
“Well, I’d love to, Nick.”       
Nikki looked back at her, mischievous. They looked at each other for a while, clearly speaking without words.     
“You make such a lovely couple, you should definitely kiss.” Fitz said mockingly, clearly referencing the pressure they had put on him and Simmons. Leah looked up at him.       
“Well, is it really your best friend if your family does not think you’re dating?”   
Nikki took a deep breath and shoved her now empty coup of ice cream to the middle of the table. “Everyone. Quick! Pull up your feet!” Slightly shocked, they all did as she said. “What why?” Fitz asked. But Nikki just started to giggle. “Because the maturity of this conversation might need to get under it.”              

“So, Nick,” Daisy begun after a while. “You’ve been with us for, what, 6 months now, and Leah, 4 for you? What do you guys think of the team so far?” they looked up at her, a sassy, rebellious look in their eyes, as they answered together. “That’s classified.” “Oh, come on!” Fitz said. “That’s not fair!” They walked on through the city, talking, and laughing. Nikki and Leah were walking hand in hand. But suddenly, Nikki let go, stopped, and stared down a dark alleyway. “Nick, you coming?” Leah asked. But Nikki approached the alleyway. “I thought I heard something.” She said carefully. “Of course you heard something, it’s a dark alleyway, let’s move on, it could be dangerous.” But Simmons had barely finished her sentence when they all heard a scream. Nikki darted into the alleyway, and the rest, hesitantly, followed her. They ended up at a dead end, a young woman, wearing rags, sitting against the wall, shielding her face. In front of her was a man, holding a knife. “This is my alleyway. You’re trespassing on my territory, and now you will pay for it!” The woman shouted with her hoarse voice. “No please! I didn’t know!” Nikki didn’t wait any longer and charged the man She jumped on his back and tried to pull the knife out of his hands. He was surprised, but not for long. It all happened in a flash, but after that, Nikki was leaning against the wall, bleeding heavily from a giant slash in her belly. “You dare attack a man from behind? Foolish girl, coming here, all alone.” He screamed angrily. “Who said she was alone?” Leah said, as she had now moved past the corner, the rest was close behind. Leah used her powers to blind him before Daisy rushed in and knocked him out. “Are you completely out of your mind? You can’t just do something like that!” Simmons screamed, as the rushed over to Nikki to inspect her injuries. “Don’t you tell me what I can or cannot do. And don’t worry. I’m all right, it’s just a cut. Go check on that woman.” She grunted as the hoisted herself up again. Daisy moved over to the woman, who was still covering her face and cowering against the wall. “It’s okay. We’re not going to hurt you. We’re friends.” She held out her hand and pulled the woman back to her feet. She could feel the bone in the skinny hand. This woman was starving. “Thanks” She stammered, as she now looked directly at Daisy. There was a moment of silence, until Nikki finally looked the woman in the eye. “Ana?”

Everyone fell silent. “Nick…?” the woman stammered, clearly confused. Nikki ignored her cut, and walked over to the woman, wrapping her into a big hug, and bursting into tears. “Ana? Is that really you?” Fitz was the first you speak. “Wait, you two know each other?” he asked. Nikki let go of the woman and said. “Guys. This is Anastasia. My sister!” She turned back to Anastasia. “Ana, I thought you were dead! How are you here?” She quickly spoke a few sentences in Dutch that no one could understand, as her sister replied in slightly shorter ones. In the corner they could hear the man grunting. “Okay, lovely family reunion, but maybe we should leave before that guy wakes up.” Daisy said quickly, and they all left the alley, back to the base.

Nikki sat next to Anastasia, while Simmons was checking if either of them was badly hurt. “Nikki, I’m afraid you’re going to need some stitches. What the hell were you thinking?” But Nikki did not respond. She just held her sisters hand in silence, as she examined her. Her clothes were filthy and torn. Her skin cracked and dry, and she was so skinny that you could see the structure of her bones beneath her skin. “Have you just been living on the streets this entire time…?” She managed to say with a crooked-up voice. But Anastasia didn’t say anything. Daisy stood up and held out her hand to her. “Come on, I’ll get you cleaned up, and then we can find a place for you where you can get some sleep okay?” “She can sleep in my room.” Nikki said quietly, and Daisy and Anastasia walked out of the room together. In the doorway she turned around and said. “Leah, are you coming? I think Nikki has enough on her mind right now, she needs to rest.” Leah nodded, and followed them out the room, leaving just Simmons, Nikki, and Fitz. Nikki closed her eyes as agent Simmons was finishing the stitches. She had resisted for a moment, as she had always hated needles, but the impression that this day had left on her, made her too exhausted to fight Simmons. “You look like her.” Simmons said kindly to break the silence that had fallen over the room. Nikki looked up, a tiny smile on her face. “Thanks, but she’s not my actual sister. I was adopted. Did I never tell you that?” Fitz and Simmons looked at each other. “No… I don’t think you did.” Fitz said, confused. “Well, I was. I was just a baby though. I grew up in that family, so it doesn’t really change all that much. Even though we’re not actually blood-relatives, I love her with all my heart.” “I’m sure you have a lot to talk about then. I’m done here, you can go. But do give her some rest first, I can’t imagine what she’s been through.” Nikki nodded, and left the room.

That night, she and her sister were sitting alone in her room. Everyone else had given them some time alone, as they didn’t want to intrude on these personal matters. Anastasia had been given some clean clothes, and most of her cuts and bruises had been treated. She already looked a lot better, although she was still very weak. “So.” She finally spoke. Her voice was still soft, but a lot stronger now. “When are we going to escape?” Nikki stared at her, completely taken aback. “What?”                
“They kidnapped you, didn’t they? For your powers? I saw them take you away! I followed you all the way to the US to rescue you!”   
Nikki shook her head. “No Ana, it’s not like that.” She fell silent for a moment. “The people that took me… I managed to escape from them. That was Hydra. This, where we are now, this is S.H.I.E.L.D. They help and protect people like me. They helped me escape those other, bad, people, and then they gave me a home. They’re good people, Ana, we can trust them. They are like my family now.”  
“Family…” Ana whimpered softly. “Mum… Dad… They’re really gone, aren’t they?” Nikki stayed silent for a while. “You’re not.” She then said, looking at her sister. She pulled her into a big hug. “How did you get out of that house?” She asked quietly.            
“I wasn’t downstairs. I was listening from the staircase, I don’t think they even knew I was there… They shot mum and dad, and then moved onto the kitchen. I just managed to climb out of the window before they set the house on fire. You remember that little, broken down wall beneath your bedroom window? I guess it finally became useful…”      
“I’m so glad that you’re okay! I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. Living on your own, on the streets this entire time, trying to find me!”                  
“I just wanted to make sure that you were safe. But apparently, I shouldn’t have worried so much, because you’re part of a secret organisation now!”     
“Yeah, they’re pretty awesome.”                
Silence fell between the two again. “I love you Ana.” They fell asleep together, and Nikki felt as though a hole inside of her had been filled once more.


	8. Concealed trauma's

Anastasia stayed for the next couple of weeks. She was gradually getting better and stronger and was getting along with the team just great.   
“Wait. So, you graduated University, with honours, when you were…”   
“15!” Anastasia shouted happily. “My parents were so proud.  
She was sitting in the living room with Fitz and Simmons. They were the two people with whom she had bonded the most, since it was clear that her intelligence rivalled theirs. “Another biologist.” Fitz said mockingly. “Don’t you two go ganging up on me!” They laughed. “Come on Fitz.” Simmons said. “You still have Nikki. She might not have graduated, and she might not exactly be an engineer, but it’s close.” They talked on for a while, until Nikki walked in. She had a huge smile on her face. “Hey guys! Whatch’a doing?”               
“Hey Nick.” Fitz said. “We were just talking. Your sister is great!”   
For just a fraction of a second, it looked like Nikki’s eyes grew darker, but she kept smiling, so everyone just brushed it off. “So, guys. I made something really cool, and it’s finally finished. You want to come and see?” She asked happily. “Yeah, sure. We’ll be over in just a sec. Anastasia was just telling us about het university-life.” For a second time, Nikki’s eyes grew dark. This time, a little while longer. “But… I have been working on this for so long! You’ll love it! I swear! Just come with me!” Anastasia looked up at her. “Nikki, they said they’d come over in a second, calm down.” She turned back to Fitz and Simmons and continued the conversation. Nikki didn’t leave, but instead just watched as they continued talking. She just stood there for a moment while no one even noticed that she was still there. Then she left the room.

No one saw Nikki for the rest of the day. Not that that was anything to worry about on itself, because Nikki had the tendency to just disappear from time to time. She would go to her room and meditate, or read, or just do something on her own, in silence. Everyone just gave her the space they thought she needed. The first person to look for her, was Daisy. She had just had another disagreement with Coulson. They had those a lot. And maybe he was right, he was the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., naturally there were things that he couldn’t just tell anyone, but it still wasn’t fair. She walked up to Nikki’s room. She could always cheer everyone up and was always in for a good talk. Daisy knocked on the door. “Nick, you in there?” There was no answer. She knocked again. But still no answer. Daisy slowly opened the door and looked inside the room. It took her a moment to process what she saw. The room was trashed. Things knocked from the desk, and her bedsheets lying in the middle of the room. Chair and lamp knocked over, and pieces of wallpaper ripped off. Everything to show that a struggle had taken place here. And there, in the middle of the room, was Nikki. Blood under her fingernails, a huge bruise on her head, and some slashes on her arms. She was lying on the floor unconscious. It took a moment for Daisy to take in the scene, before she ran out of the room, looking for help.

Nikki was lying on a hospital bed when she woke up, her cuts and bruises had been treated. “Good! You’re awake!” Simmons said. Nikki felt her head and got up. Every part of her body aching. She buried her face in her hands for a moment, before wiping her hair out of her face with her right hand. Simmons was looking at some monitors that were displaying her vitals. When Nikki looked around the room, she could see that Daisy was also standing there, looking at her expectantly, but she said nothing. After a while, the silence broke, and Daisy asked: “So? Aren’t you going to tell us who attacked you?” Nikki looked tired and confused, and with a soft crooked voice she asked, “Wait. Why? What happened?”            
“Well I found you in your room, knocked out on the floor, with the entire room in ruins, and blood everywhere. So, what the hell happened? Are they still in the base? Because maybe it’s a good idea to catch them!”          
Nikki sat up a little straighter. “No… guys… I’m fine. I’m just a little tired, but no-one attacked me.”                  
The door opened, and Anastasia walked through. “Nikki. Are you all right? I heard what happened, came as fast as I could.” She walked to the bed, clearly planning to sit down next to her, but when she saw her face, she suddenly stopped. She waited for a moment, hesitating, before she sat down on the table that was standing elsewhere in the room. Daisy looked at her.          
“Wait, who told you that Nikki was here? I thought it’d be better if we kept this quiet until we caught who did this. I didn’t tell anyone…”  
“Yeah, well, it’s her sister. I felt like she had to know that this had happened...” Simmons replied.   
“Wait, why?”         
Simmons suddenly turned around and opened her mouth, but didn’t speak for a while, as she was trying to choose her words carefully. “Nikki…” She began slowly. “Is there… anything that, you would like to talk with someone about…?” Nikki looked at her. Her face was calm, but her eyes gave away that clearly, she did not like this question.   
“What do you mean?” She asked.     
“Before you passed out… Did you feel… weak, or, like you couldn’t breathe?”       
Daisy looked up at her, surprised. “Wait, you’re thinking panic attack?”                 
Nikki jumped up, ripping the needles of whatever things had been monitoring out of her arm. “What is your problem? I said that I’m fine!” After saying this, she regretted pulling out all the needles, as her face contorted in pain for a moment. Then she continued, slightly calmer, but clearly still angry. “Don’t you go playing these mind games on me, you’re no psychologist, for fuck’s sake, you’re not even a real doctor! Just someone who happens to have a PhD in biology! Don’t you dare go snooping around in my head! None of you! That’s none of your goddam business. Leave me alone!” And with that, she stormed out the room, leaving everyone bewildered behind. Anastasia looked at the door, her expression unreadable, before she left the room as well without saying anything. She went in a different direction than her little sister had gone, but she clearly had a place in mind she wanted to be.   
“What the hell was that?” Daisy asked concerned. She looked at agent Simmons expectantly.         
“I don’t think she was attacked. It just doesn’t make sense. No one has seen anyone come in, or leave the base, and no one inside would have any reason to attack Nikki like that.” She started to clear up the mess that Nikki had left behind. “Besides, I found tremendously excessive amounts of cortisol and adrenaline in her blood. Whatever happened, it freaked her out, and she does not want to talk about it.” Daisy looked at her in surprise. “So, you’re saying that she trashed her room herself?” She was trying to make it sound like a joke, but Simmons didn’t laugh. “Yes. I do.” There was a moment of silence. “Have you ever seen her show any real emotions? Apart from those heat-of-the-moment tantrums she sometimes throws, I have never actually seen her angry, or sad, or afraid. It’s unnatural.” “Well, she showed quite a lot of anger just now!” Daisy said confused. But Simmons brushed her away. “Because she couldn’t keep it in any more. The question is, why did she try so hard to?”

There was a knock on the door, but before Nikki could answer, Anastasia had already entered the room. Nikki had been clearing up some of the mess, but the room still looked awful. She did not in any way show that she had acknowledged that Anastasia entering the room, but she knew that she had. “Hey Nick… need any help?” She asked carefully. Nikki froze for a second, before dropping the pillow that she was holding back on the ground. “I made such a mess again, didn’t I?” She said quietly, without turning around to face to her sister. “Are you all right?” But Nikki dismissed her. “Get out...” She said quietly. Anastasia didn’t move. “Nikki… we talked about this-” But Nikki had turned around, and repeated “Get out!”, now with a lot more force behind her voice. She pushed her sister back and slammed the door in her face. But before Anastasia could open it again, she could just hear the key turn in the lock.

She stayed locked in her room for the rest of the day, and strangely, her sister did the same. Multiple times the team had tried to get them out, but neither of them responded. Even Leah could not get through to Nikki.   
“Has she ever behaved like this before?”        
“Not that I know of. But then again, I’ve only known her slightly longer than you have, and while being captured and tortured in a Hydra base, strange behaviour is the norm.”

The next day however, everything suddenly seemed to have returned to normal. “Good morning!” Nikki said happily as she entered the kitchen to get some breakfast. It seemed like nothing had changed. Simmons looked up in surprise. “You look like you’re feeling better than yesterday. Are you okay?” Nikki smiled at her. “Nothing that a good night’s sleep can’t fix! Sorry about that, though, I didn’t mean to yell at you.” She gave a kind smile.

“Oh, that reminds me, I was going to show you something, wasn’t I?” She said later. Fitz looked up. “Oh, right, sure, let’s see then. She took them to her room and opened a drawer of her desk. She pulled out something, but it suddenly sprung to life, and jumped out of her hands and ran over to Fitz and Simmons. “Derp!” She shouted quickly. It stopped dead in its tracks, giving Fitz and Simmons a chance to see what it was: a small robot that looked somewhat like a small puppy. “Voice recognition?” Fitz asked fascinated. Nikki nodded, smiling. Simmons laughed. “And you named it Derp?”   
“Yes, of course. Look at him and tell me that that’s not a little derp. Of course, if you don’t like it, we can always change it. I just have to record a new name then.”          
Fitz looked at her surprised. “Wait, what do you mean?”            
Nikki smiled. “Well, word goes that you really want a dog, Leo. I was bored, so I thought I’d make you one. I’ve been working on this for a while now. Of course, it’s nothing like what you can do, but I did my best.” She looked down at the dog. “Derp. Spin!” She said, and the dog followed the command. “Derp. Play dead!” And the robot did as she said. “Nikki, that’s amazing.” Simmons said happily. Nikki laughed, and gave a little mischievous smile. “Wait ‘till you see this. Derp. Activate protocol 209!” The robot jumped in the air, tucked in its legs, and hovered above the ground for a while before it made a loop and landed back on the ground. “Ever seen a dog do that?” She said, laughing. And they stayed in the room for a while, watching the robot do its little tricks.

The rest of the day, Nikki behaved just like she always had, and like nothing had happened. Anastasia did just the same. On the surface, it looked like everything was all right, but of course, it wasn’t. And occasionally, that showed. It seemed like there was tension between the two sisters, but in a strange way, not necessarily aggressive. Apart from that, occasionally, Nikki would freeze for a couple of seconds, sometimes in the middle of a task, or conversation, staring blankly into space, before continuing like nothing had happened. When this was pointed out to her, she denied everything. Other moments, she would suddenly close her eyes, and shake her head a couple of times, as though trying to shake some negative thought, sometimes while even grabbing her head or gasping for air. Of course, she denied this as well. In the meantime, Anastasia kept a close eye on her sister. She knew something, but it was hard to tell what that was. And she too, denied that anything was wrong.


	9. Darkness in the night

At night, however, the severity of the situation was revealed again. Daisy was woken in the middle of the night, by what sounded like screaming, coming from Nikki’s room. She rushed in to check, only to find Nikki next to her bed, with her hands in her hair, screaming and crying. Leah was already sitting next to her, looking panicked. A little orb of light was hovering above them, illuminating the room.            
“I don’t know what to do!” Daisy rushed over to them, and also tried to calm Nikki down, but she didn’t respond in any way. “I don’t think she can hear you” Simmons said from the doorway, also awoken by the screams. She and Fitz also walked in the room, but Nikki didn’t seem to notice it. “Nikki. Calm down. Talk to me. What happened? It’s not real, it’s just a bad dream. Let it go.” Simmons said calmly, but Nikki still didn’t respond. “I don’t know what to do!” She said to the rest. “This is not really my area of expertise.” They heard more footsteps, which stopped just in the doorway. Anastasia was standing there, holding a little music box. She didn’t say anything but placed the music box on a little table next to the door. She then rushed over to the desk in the room, pulling open several drawers, before closing them again. She then walked over to whatever kind of cupboards were standing in the room, clearly searching for something. Finally, she found what she had been looking for, and retrieved a tiny teddy bear, the size of her hand, from one of the cupboards. She then walked back to the music box, and pressed play. Soft music filled the room. Then, Anastasia started to sing, quietly. Her voice filled with pain and sadness, and not as beautiful as Nikki’s was, but still soothing and kind.

_“How could I have been so cruel?_  
_How could I’ve been so unkind?_  
_Because now you can’t bare the weight_  
_Of those dark thoughts on your mind.”_

She had walked over to her sister and sat down next to her. Daisy, Fitz, and Simmons had stood up, giving the two sisters some room, as Anastasia continued to sing.

_“And the stars weep tonight_  
_As you can’t hold onto the light_  
_It’s fading…_  
_But I’ll stay by your side_  
_To give you the love_  
_That you have been denied…”_

She took the little stuffed animal, and carefully placed it into Nikki’s arms. Nikki continued to scream and cry, but for the first time she moved slightly. As her hand carefully enclosed it. Anastasia put her hand upon the hand with which Nikki was holding the toy but didn’t make any other physical contact.

_“Because all through my childhood_  
_I shone like the sun_  
_As they said I was the perfect child._  
_They loved me and kissed me_  
_My father and mother_  
_I still feel the warmth of their beautiful smiles_

_Why was I so selfish?_  
_Why couldn’t I see_  
_That you were not treated like me?”_

She moved her hand over her sisters’ face, wiping away her hair, and cupping her face with her hand. Nikki had stopped screaming, but she was still crying. She had opened her eyes and looked her sister in the eyes.

_“My shadow, it darkened_  
_The core of your heart_  
_And through all those years_  
_slowly tore us apart”_

She pulled her in for a hug, as Nikki buried her face in her shoulder. Anastasia softly continued to sing.

_“Sleep now my dearest_  
_Oh, my darling light_  
_You can have your rest now_  
_That you’re safe inside_  
_And I’ll stay by your side until my lullaby_  
_Fills you up, and you can’t deny…_  
_That you are worth so much more than you’ve been told_  
_Now let go of that pain inside…”_

Anastasia moved her head away from her sister, and stared blankly into the room, as tears formed in her eyes as well. Clearly, this wasn’t Nikki’s story. It was hers.

_“I remember the times_  
_You showed me the signs_  
_That you couldn’t keep up with life…_  
_But I only saw all that was my own_  
_And you slowly died in the darkness alone.”_

She pulled her sister even closer, as she continued to sing through her tears.

_“Sleep now my dearest_  
_Oh, sweet sister mine_  
_Please rest your mind_  
_Now that you’re safe inside_  
_And please forgive me_  
_For those times that I teased you_  
_And the times that I was so blind…_

_Please hear my apologies, this silent night_  
_You never knew how much I loved you_  
_But the only blame for that is mine…”_

She stopped singing for a while, as the music continued. Another wave of sorrow rushed over Nikki, and she curled up in a ball again, and laid down on the floor. The sudden movement caused Anastasia to let go of her, but she quickly picked her younger sister up again, and held her in her lap, as she sang the next couplet, pain, and sorrow behind her voice.

_“The home where you grew up_  
_Cold, fearful and forlorn_  
_I wasn’t there for you_  
_You faced it all alone…_  
_I’ll pray that in these dark times_  
_Peace will be your fate_  
_I’ll now tell you that I love you_  
_But am I not too late?”_

The last few sentences, Anastasia had sung in little more than a whisper, and Nikki calmed down again. A couple of tears still rolled over her face, but she had grown silent. Anastasia could feel her body relax as he was holding her. With slight effort, she managed to scoop her sister up from the floor, and gently put her back into bed, softly tucking her back in. Nikki’s eyes were still slightly open, as she looked upon her sister, who was now sitting beside her bed, and softly stroking her hair.

_“I’ll stay by your side tonight_  
_Like the sister you deserve_  
_The monsters can't hurt you anymore_  
_Now Sleep…”_

Nikki slowly closed her eyes and fell back into a peaceful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were wondering: Yes, I did write that song myself, though it is based on some other songs. There used to be another song, but I swapped it out, since I didn't write that one. I just had this lying around, and put it in. Tell me what you think!


	10. Regret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! For the people who haven't figured it out yet by the past few chapters: The next two chapters will deal with some heavy themes. Mostly based on child abuse, and depression. That's why I just wanted to put in a little trigger-warning, just in case. If you are sensitive to these kinds of subjects, be careful.

Anastasia softly kissed her sisters’ forehead, before carefully getting up. She quietly walked to the door and gestured to the rest to follow her. When they got back to her room, and she had closed the door behind her, she finally spoke. “If this ever happens again, I found where she keeps her tokens. Get one of them to her and give her my lullaby. That’s the best way to help her.” Daisy looked at her, surprised and confused. “Wait, I get that she’s your sister, but how did you figure out how to do this? Has this happened a lot before?” Anastasia nodded sadly, before sitting down on the edge of her bed. “I am… _was_ the only one who knew about this. I’ve had to do this a couple of times before. It still breaks my heart, but I have to. It’s my fault anyway…”                 
“This was a panic attack, probably triggered by some bad dream. How can you blame yourself for that, you weren’t even in the room?”  
Ana pulled up her legs, and rested her chin on her knees, staring blankly into the room. “Because I knew what the nightmare was about. She never told me, she probably won’t even remember this tomorrow morning, but it’s not hard for me to guess what she saw.” She let out a sad sigh and begun to talk.

“I had a wonderful childhood. I got so much praise and love from our parents. With my top marks, and all my friends, and later my amazing boyfriend, everything was just perfect, and my parents were so proud of me. And they showed it. They were so kind, and nice, and did everything they could to make me feel loved and appreciated. I was showered with gifts every time I had another great mark at school.”

“They sound like wonderful people.” Fitz said. But Anastasia’s eyes grew sad.

“No… They weren’t…” She reached under the mattress and pulled out a pile of paper in Nikki’s handwriting. Clearly some sort of improvised diary. “My sister, she too had good marks, but never quite as great as me. She got in to university at such an early age, and that is such an amazing accomplishment. But I graduated with honours, at the same age that she was when she got in. No matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, I was always better. And because of that, she was always the disappointment, never good enough for our parents. And yes, she had her own qualities, her own talents that I can’t even dream of having, but hers are far more abstract, and less academic. And that just didn’t mean anything to them… The better that I did at school, the more love and praise I received, but I didn’t realise how hard I was making it for her to keep up. And the more I was admired and complimented, the more she was beaten and yelled at… And I did nothing…”

She had to gasp for air as she started to cry. She looked down at the diary that held the memory of all this pain, both in words, and the tear- and bloodstains that could be seen upon the paper. Leah turned around and put her hands in her hair. She was clearly furious and tried very hard to keep her anger under control. But Anastasia continued.

“After a while, she just broke. She was socially extremely undeveloped, which caused her to have such immense trouble making friends. She got overly self-critical, blaming herself for everything, and feeling that she had to be completely perfect if she wanted to be worth something. She had to cope with depression almost her entire life, and she had to do it alone… And I was just too blind to see how I just completely overshadowed her…”

_Two years ago…_   
_The door opened, and Anastasia entered the house. She hung up her coat and walked to the living room. She dropped her bags onto the floor, and ran over to her parents, who were standing in the hallway. Her father wrapped her into a big hug, and spun her around, filled with joy._   
_“Daddy!” She yelled happily._   
_Now her mother hugged her, before kissing the top of her head, and taking her hand._   
_“Come here, honey. There’s some people who want to see you.”_   
_She took her daughter to the living room, which was filled with people. Friends and family, who all started clapping as soon as they entered the room._   
_“And there she is! The pride of the family!”_   
_“Only 15 and already a degree in biology!”_   
_“What a beautiful accomplishment!”_   
_Compliments like this kept coming for a while, as everyone congratulated her, before her father finally picked her up, and put her on a chair. The entire room sang for her._

_Sometime later, Nikki quietly entered the room. She looked around at the crowd, before walking to the table to help herself to some cake. But she was interrupted._   
_“Where did you come from?” She heard in a hushed tone, behind her. She left the cake and turned around to face her father._   
_“I’m sorry, dad. I just wanted some cake…”_   
_“And why should you think that you’ve earned that cake?”_   
_“The results for the school play came in today. I got the lead role!” She smiled, but her father didn’t return it._   
_“The school play. Well, well, I suppose that makes it clear where your priorities lie. Your marks are still mediocre at best, but you do have the time for that such nonsense!”_   
_“My grades aren’t mediocre. I got a 7 last week!” Nikki gritted her teeth._   
_“For a test that your sister easily aced! Now get out of the room, you are embarrassing Anastasia!”_   
_For a moment. Nikki looked like she was going to protest, but she just nodded, and quietly left the room._

_The party went on for quite a while after that, and Anastasia was having the time of her life. But suddenly, she could hear commotion from outside the room. She peeked through the door and saw her little sister. She had been standing outside the door, but their parents had found her._   
_“Are you still here?” Her father asked angrily._   
_“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to upset anyone!”_   
_“You are wasting your time with this behaviour. This way your grades will never be better. You can't do anything right. You can never be like our daughter.”_   
_Nikki looked down at the ground but kept her face straight. She was doing everything she could to prevent herself from crying. She tried to walk away, but her mother suddenly stepped forward and grabbed her wrist, twisting back her arm painfully._   
_“Don’t you dare walk away from us, you insolent child!”_   
_Nikki tried to pull her arm back, but her mother was stronger._   
_“Please… it hurts…” she begged, but her father stepped in and grabbed her by her throat, choking her._   
_“I’ll show you pain!” He yelled, and he slapped her across her face. He impact was so great that she fell to the ground. The floor shook as she came down. Her father looked down upon her. Coolly he said:_   
_“Now you can leave. Get back to your homework.”_   
_Nikki nodded and hurriedly rushed back to her room._

_That night, Anastasia quietly entered her room. Nikki was lying on her bed, her face buried in her pillow, and bleeding scars all over her arms._   
_“Hey, Nick. I saw that mum and dad gave you a hard time… are you all right?”_   
_But she had barely said anything when Nikki jumped out of bed and started shouting at her._   
_“A ‘hard time’? You have no idea what you are talking about, you goddamn little princess! Get the hell out of my room!”_   
_Anastasia’s expression changed, and anger flickered in her eyes._   
_“Well I’m sorry!” She said sarcastically. “I’m sorry that I even bothered to be nice to you. Maybe mum and dad were right about you this afternoon, you ungrateful brat! This was supposed to be a wonderful evening! One that I gave up, just to check in if you were alright, and this is what you’re giving me? Thank you very much, because you just ruined my entire day!”_   
_Nikki looked back at her, furious. She didn’t say anything else, but she stepped forwards, pushed her out of the room, and slammed the door in her face. Anastasia now stood behind the closed door of her sisters’ room, and she could hear her screaming and crying on the other side. She shot one last look at the door, before turning around, and entering her own room, and leaving her sister to fight for herself…_


	11. Story of the two sisters

Anastasia closed her eyes firmly, and put her hands over her mouth, as she remembered the events of that day. She looked horrified. She sat there for a moment, as she cried. Fitz, Simmons, and Daisy sat down, looking horrified by the story, but Leah unleashed her anger into throwing a pillow across the room with full force. It knocked over a lamp, but she didn’t seem to care. “Who the hell would that!” She screamed, furious. “I swear, those people are lucky they’re dead, or I would really like to have a ‘talk’ with them!” She looked around at Anastasia, and the anger faded when she saw the expression on her face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…” But Anastasia nodded. “No, you’re absolutely right.” She took another deep breath and continued a bit calmer.

“And I was no better. I just moved away and returned to my own room. I regretted that later though. Even though I still couldn’t see that she was slowly dying inside, I still loved her. So, I went back to her room at night, and cleaned and bandaged all her wounds. It took me a couple of hours to do it properly. She must have been so exhausted, she slept through all of it, probably never even noticed I was there…”

She stopped talking, clearly lost in thought for a moment, but no one dared to say anything.

“The next day, everything was back to normal, and she acted as though nothing had happened. Quite like how she did after what happened a couple of days ago. She never showed anything, probably fearing that she would attract attention if she did. Emotion was a taboo in our family. Made you weak. And the sad thing is that Nikki’s best quality is her abundance of emotion. Her empathy. And she had to swallow it all. She is so strong, and I am so proud of how long she managed it. I can’t imagine being able to do that for even a week, let alone 14 years… Though eventually, it took its toll on her, and one night, she snapped.”

She waited for a moment, clearly hesitating if she wanted to continue, or stop here. “What I’m about to tell now, is the absolute lowest point that she has ever been. But please, do not hold it against her. Do not punish her for my blindness and foolery. She deserves nothing but love.” Everyone nodded carefully, curious of about what was coming next, and how that could be any worse than what they had already heard.   

_One year later…  
Nikki was sitting alone in her room and looked out the window. The house was dark, and quiet, and the car was missing from the parking lot. She leaned her head on the window, and a tear rolled down her face, as she softly started to sing._

_“Happy birthday to me…_   
_Happy birthday to me…”_

_She looked down at her hands, where she was holding a stack of paper. The tearstains had wiped out parts of the ink text. With a small needle, she poked her thumb. A drop of blood fell onto the paper, and Nikki tried to focus on the pain to numb out her heartache. When it didn’t work, she carelessly threw it aside._

_She had been sitting there for most of the day, waiting for someone, anyone, to come home. But it seemed like everyone had just forgotten about her. Her parents had left early that morning, to go to some sort of concert, elsewhere in the country. They wouldn’t be coming home that night either and would sleep in a hotel. Her sister had spent the entire day with her boyfriend, and she too wouldn’t be coming home for the night._

_Meanwhile, Anastasia was not having a great night as well, as she slammed the door in Gael’s face, and walked up the streets. He didn’t even bother to come after her. Sure, couples fought, and they were sure to make up again tomorrow, but for now, she just couldn’t bear to see his stupid face again. Maybe when she got home, she could give Nikki her birthday present. She thought of the tiny teddy bear that was lying in a drawer in her room. But her real gift would come this weekend: A movie, and then dinner in her favourite sushi restaurant…_

_As she neared her home, she could see that the lights in the house were off. Strange… had Nikki already gone to bed? It was only 8 o‘clock… She got closer to the house and got of her bike. But then, in the darkness, she could see Nikki standing on the pavement, waiting for her. She absent-mindedly put her bike on the pavement, as thoughts of the fight with her boyfriend were still racing through her head._   
_“Hey Nick… You can go back inside, I’ll just put my bike in the shed, and then I’ll be right there. You want to see a movie? The new ‘Avengers’ was on tv tonight, right?”_   
_But she didn’t get an answer, and Nikki didn’t move._   
_“Nikki… How long have you been standing there…? Did you… know I was coming home?”_   
_But she still didn’t get a reply. And this was when she first looked her in her eyes. They were dark, and cold, like all the life and light had disappeared… And without even saying a single word, she attacked her._

_Anastasia let out a scream._   
_“Nikki! What are you doing? It’s me! Your sister!”_   
_She dodged out of the way, but Nikki charged her another time. She took out a knife from under her shirt and started slashing it her way. Anastasia dodged again and again, while trying to get through to her little sister, but it was clear that she wasn’t going to stop. She was going to kill her._

_Anastasia was confused, as tears sprung in her eyes._   
_“Nikki, please, stop. You don’t have to do this. I’m not going to fight you. I love you.”_   
_But Nikki responded by taking another swing at her with the knife. She drew blood, as she formed a giant slash over Anastasia’s body. She let out another scream, before she finally managed to twist back Nikki’s arm, and forced her to let go of the knife. It flew through the air and landed somewhere further down on the street. Nikki tried to move over to it, but Anastasia held her back, grabbing both her wrists, but Nikki had much more combat experience, and was a lot stronger._   
_“Nick… please… We can talk about this. I’ll call mum and dad, we can talk this through.”_   
_Nikki looked her straight in the eye, and with an unrecognisable voice she said: “No. No more talking. They will finally love me.”_   
_She gave Anastasia a firm kick, which sent her flying backwards, and she landed on her back on the hard stones. She gasped for air, but she could see that Nikki was already moving in closer. She formed a fire in her hand and was coming in to finish the job. Anastasia crawled backwards over the street, in a desperate attempt to escape Nikki, until her hand suddenly moved over something sharp. She looked down, and saw the bloodied knife lying beside her. Tears were rolling down her face, as she kept looking from the knife in her hand, to her younger sister who was coming closer to kill her. Before she even had time to think about it, she got up, and moved the knife around._

_“Ana…?”_   
_Nikki’s soft, sweet voice sounded through the street. The cold, dark look in her eyes faded, and her hands slowly moved over to her stomach, to where the knife was forced deep into her body. Anastasia was standing directly in front of her and was holding the other end with a trembling hand, and tears in her eyes._   
_“Nikki…?”_   
_But Nikki just gasped for air as she lost all strength in her legs. Anastasia caught her, and carefully moved her down to the ground._   
_“No… Nikki… please, stay with me… NO!”_   
_And Nikki closed her eyes, as Anastasia slowly felt her breath slowing down._

An eerie silence fell over the room, as the team sat there, shocked. They could not believe that anything like this had happened. They were afraid to ask anything, but they had to know. Daisy carefully asked. “How bad was it…?” Anastasia looked down at the ground.

“It’s all a bit blurry… too much happened too quickly, and I barely had time to process anything… I remember the ambulance taking her away, and then, she was just… lying there. Machines beeping, and wires all over her body, trying to keep her alive… She was in a coma for a week… And I just didn’t understand why something like this had to happen. Until I found this…” She looked down at the diary again. “I found it in my room, on my pillow. I don’t know how it got there. In the last moments before her anger consumed her, she must have put it there. That was when I realised that the only reason I was still alive was because she had been fighting it… There was a note as well. She said that she loved me, and didn’t want me to blame myself for what was about to happen… Or hold it against her” She took another deep breath, and another tear rolled down her face. “Our parents didn’t come even once… But I went there, every, single, day. And I sat by her bed for hours every time, just holding her hand, waiting for her to wake up. Gave me lots of time to think about the diary. That was when I realised that I had never told her that I loved her, but more importantly, I realised how much she had needed it. I had been so arrogant. And my sisters’ life was on the line because of it. But even if she did survive, I wondered if she’d be the same. When we grew up, we were so close, always playing together. She was so happy and joyful. But then I got older, school got more intensive, and I just didn’t hang out with her that much anymore. Her descent was so slow, I never saw her change. All I knew was that she just locked herself in her room all the time. And all this time, I just thought that it was all puberty, and she was acting like some rebellious teenager that didn’t care about us. I never once imagined that the reason that she locked herself away, was because she felt like she wasn’t wanted…”

“That’s so sad…” Simmons said quietly.

“When she woke up, she didn’t remember anything. To this day, I have never told her. She is already so harsh on herself, she would never forgive herself if she knew what she had done, it would destroy her. So please, do not ever tell her about this. She believes that she had just had some kind of accident, and it’s best if it stays that way. Anyway, everything seemed to have turned back to normal, and I was so relieved to have my little sister back, rather than that thing that I found on the pavement that night… But even though it wasn’t clear at first, I quickly found that she had been damaged by what happened. Our bedrooms were directly next to each other, and I could hear her wake up every night, screaming. At first, I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t get her to stop. She would just keep screaming and crying for an hour, before falling back to sleep exhausted. The next day, she didn’t remember it, but she’d be physically ill, that’s how horrible she felt. I decided not to make the same mistake again, and this time, I was there for her. I didn’t have much, so I just gave her what I had: that little teddy bear. It was so small, and I felt so bad that I couldn’t give her anything better, but she cherished it. I didn’t know if she could hear me during her nightly panic attacks, but one time, I just started to sing to her. And I told her everything that I had never told her. Everything that I should have had…”

“The song you sang to her tonight…” Fitz asked. Anastasia nodded.

“From that moment, every time that she woke up at night, I would give her that reminder. She still felt resentful sometimes, and I don’t blame her for that, but after a while, she let me back into her heart. And I found out that, yes, she had changed, she was not the girl I grew up with anymore. But she was beautiful. And I learned that she did have friends, a band even, and eventually, a boyfriend. Our parents and me, we never really noticed it if she was gone, but she spent a lot of time there. And I met them eventually. I didn’t even know Nikki played guitar or had such a beautiful voice. Or how kind and gentle she was. She had shielded her entire life from us… And I can’t help but feel glad that she did. Our parents would have destroyed all of it if they found out. ‘Not until her marks got better.’”

“That’s horrible!” Daisy exclaimed.  
“So were our parents…” Ana replied sadly. She looked up. “Please. Promise me that you won’t forget to tell her that she matters. And give her some new tokens. It looks like she’s going to need them…”  
“What do you mean by ‘tokens’?” Fitz asked.

“Like that little teddy bear. That cupboard that I retrieved that from is filled with stuff like that. It’s like an altar to her, or a shrine. _Never_ take anything out of there unless it’s an emergency. It may look like some random objects that don’t have anything in common – stuffed animals, photo’s, keychains, pinecones, bracelets, cards, I think there’s even a broken compass in there – but they all have a story. And they all mean the world to her. The one thing that they have in common: They were gifts. They were given to her by people she loves, but more importantly, people who love her. And not like a birthday present either. They were spontaneous gifts, and that’s what makes them so special and important. The only love that our parents ever gave her was conditional, and that was so exhausting. And even I sometimes felt like the love and praise they gave me was for a reason, and I always had to do something for it. But these things, they stand for the unconditional love that others have given her. They are like a token, which tether her to this world, remind her of the happiness and love in her life. When she has a panic attack like that, she cannot hear you, she probably won’t even realise that you’re there. But those objects… somehow, she can feel them. Words are just words, but those objects are proof that, yes, she is loved. So, since she’ll be living with you from now on, get her some that link her back to you, it might also help her open up to you. For now, let’s just go back to bed, though. And maybe try to talk to her tomorrow. She might be able to tell you more than I can.”


	12. Say goodbye

Like Anastasia had predicted, the next morning, Nikki didn’t remember a single thing of what had happened that night. However, it was clear that she was exhausted, and felt horrible. She visited her sisters room, to talk to her in private. “It happened again, didn’t it?” She asked quietly. Anastasia didn’t say anything but pulled her sister into a sweet and warm hug, before pulling her onto the couch beside her. “Did I wake anyone?” She asked carefully. Anastasia looked her in the eye. “A couple of people. Fitz, Simmons, Leah and Daisy.” Nikki looked down at the ground, pulled up her knees and put her hands in her hair. “Shit…” She said quietly. “They weren’t supposed to know about that. Not yet anyway…” She looked back up.     
“How much did you tell them?”         
“Everything. At least, everything I could tell them, and felt like they should know. But don’t worry, they took it very well. Now they’re just worried about you. They really care for you, you know?”   
But Nikki stayed silent.        
“You should talk to them. They’re not going to judge you, and they’re not going to throw you out. Not everyone is like mum and dad, these are good people.”              
“But what do I tell them?”                  
“The truth.”

Later that day, after Anastasia had passed on the message to everyone that Nikki had wanted to see them, they were all sitting in Nikki’s room, talking. In a way, it was a strange situation. Nikki had always been the one who lend an ear to whomever wanted to get something off their chest, and she never asked for anything in return. But now, she was the one doing the talking, and she wasn’t holding anything back. She retold the story that her sister had told them last night, though from her perspective. Yet since she couldn’t remember the night that she had almost killed her sister, her story was slightly different. But that wasn’t the point of this talk anyway. She just needed to take a leap of faith and trust her new friends. She had always kept her vulnerabilities in the dark, but now it was time to show them, and to accept them.                 
“Sometimes I’m just afraid that I’m going to end up just like them, you know?” She said softly.        
“Why?” Daisy asked. “You are nothing like that! Why would you even think that?”             
“Because I’ve been damaged… That’s something that can’t be undone. Some scars cannot heal, and maybe they’ll corrupt me one day.”                 
Leah moved over and sat down next to her, pulling her into a hug.  
“Yeah, sure. You’re damaged. You’re not perfect. And to be honest, sometimes you really drive me crazy-”               
“Leah!” Simmons shouted, but Leah continued.           
“But that goes for everyone here. Nikki, please don’t ever forget: you’re the manure from which pretty flowers grow. They are just a piece of shit.”    
It was the strangest compliment that she had ever heard, but that was exactly why it worked, and Nikki started to giggle.   
“Thanks, Leah.”      
“Anytime.”          

Nikki got up and walked over to the cupboard from which Ana had retrieved the teddy bear that night. She opened it. She showed them the contents and told them all about the stories behind them. They were surprised to see that they recognised some of the objects. “Wait, I gave you this blanket, didn’t I? You were really cold that one night, so I fetched this for you. I was wondering where that went…” Daisy said confused. “Sorry...” Nikki replied. “I thought it was just a simple blanket. I didn’t even realise that maybe I was supposed to give it back…” “Oh, no, that’s okay. But, like you said, it’s just a simple old blanket. How did this end up between your ‘tokens’? I just didn’t want you to be cold, so I thought it would be a normal, and natural thing to get you an extra blanket.” Nikki gave a weak smile. “And because it was so natural and spontaneous, _that_ is wat makes it so special.” Fitz and Simmons also found a couple of things they knew to be from some of the team members. All just little, worthless things, but Nikki treated them with all the care in the world.

To their greatest surprise, at one point they also found something that Nikki claimed to be her mother’s.                 
“Not meaning to be rude, but, why do you keep that in here? Wasn’t your mother horrible to you? Doesn’t this bring back horrible memories?” Leah asked carefully.          
Nikki shook her head, and carefully placed the little statue back.  
“Well, yeah, I suppose. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about this thing… I mean, I was a lot younger when she gave this to me, maybe 4 years old, but it was out of love. She wasn’t all bad.”   
She turned around.              
“From what your sister told us, she was horrible!”       
“Perhaps… But she was still my mother. I don’t hate her. I mean, I _did_ hate her… for a while… but then I realised that that wasn’t going to get me anywhere. No one is just purely evil, and I’m sure that there was a lot more to her than that she was showing me. Same for my dad. So, I forgave them.”    
“Sorry if I’m asking the obvious… but how can you just forgive someone for that? You don’t have to do that, you know? They hurt you. They don’t deserve forgiveness.” Daisy said carefully.        
Nikki took a deep breath.    
“I think that the common misconception that people make about forgiveness, is that you forgive someone to do the other person a favour. You don’t. You forgive someone, because _you_ yourself benefit from that as well. I don’t like being angry. I hate it. Makes me feel absolutely horrible. I don’t want to hold a grudge against someone. It only takes up time, energy, and happiness…             
Besides, who will eventually benefit from it? It won’t make me happy, it won’t make them happy, and it won’t make anyone else who had anything to do with the situation happy. It just spreads a lot of pain and suffering and creates a rift between people. And just say that I was still angry, what do I have to gain from that? Some sort of weird satisfaction? And then what? Profits?”             
She shook her head.             
“And this goes for any situation. Anytime you think you should be angry with someone. What’s the use? I remember at some time, I had a friend who really screwed me over. I was _so angry_ with him. And then, half a year later, he texted me, saying that he was really sorry, and wanted to make up. And I agreed to meet. We just had a normal conversation about what happened. No pain, no anger, just a rational conversation about who did what wrong. And yes, eventually I did decide that I didn’t want to see him anymore, and I cut him out of my life, but not before we had ended our fight in a respectful, grown-up way. And he completely understood my decision. We talked, we laughed, he thanked me for hearing him out, and that was the last I ever saw of him. But the loose ends were tied up, we had talked about it, and we could both move on with our lives. You can be angry with people all you like, and fights will always happen. But never attack someone’s self-worth. Stay respectful, stay calm, and stay rational. Not only will that prevent you from hurting others, but you’ll find an inner calm that you’ve never known before. Forgive… Grow from it… and then let go.”

After everyone had left, Nikki headed back to her sisters’ room, only to find it empty. Literally empty. The sheets had been taken of the bed, and all personal belongings had gone. Nikki rushed out of the room, and ran through the base, only to find Ana in Coulson’s office. She burst into the room, cutting Coulson off mid-sentence. “Ana?” She asked, confused. Then she noticed the packed bags standing on the floor. “You’re leaving?” She added softly. Anastasia walked over to her, and took her hand, not sure of what to say. “We decided that it might be best if I don’t stay here permanently…” She said quietly. Coulson interrupted. “She told me about the past you two have. I’m sorry Nicole, but if you want to be an asset to this team, I need you sharp, and apparently, this is a problem.” He had said it very kindly, to make sure that it was clear to Nikki that this was indeed the best solution. Anastasia continued. “Nick… this is your world, not mine. You may have always felt like you were in my shadow, but now, I’m in yours. You are far more valuable to these people than I am. It’s time that I find my own place. My own home…”         
Nikki burst into tears. “But Ana, I love you. You’re all that I have left. Don’t leave me, please…”        
“I know Nikki, but we both know that if I stay, I would only be holding you back. You can do extraordinary things, but the only way to move forward is to let go of the things that are holding you back. You need to set yourself free. As long as I am here, you can’t do that. I love you so much Nikki, and that’s exactly why I am giving you your best shot here...”             
“But where will you go?” Nikki asked through her tears.             
Anastasia pulled herself back together and put on a brave and determined face.                 
“I am 18 and have a PhD in microbiology. Agent Simmons has pulled some strings and got me into contact with some other biologists. They offered me a job, starting tomorrow. They already payed me some part in advance so I could rent an apartment there. Don’t worry about me, Nick. I’ll be fine.”   
“Can I at least visit?” Nikki asked.      
Ana pulled her into a big hug.            
“I will be looking forward to those days with all my heart.”

At the end of the day, she was gone, but not before Nikki had given her something very special. Some people would have found it weird to return a gift, but for Nikki to part with one of her tokens was a very special gesture. And Ana held the little teddy bear gently in her hand as she walked out the base, now having a token of her own, that would forever safekeep the love between the two sisters.


	13. Getting the band back together

“Nicole, Coulson wanted me to come get you, he wants you on the next mission.”            
Nikki was sitting in her room, and May was standing in the doorway, gesturing for her to come with her. She had been in the team for 8 months now, and she was used to this by now. Nikki followed her to Coulson’s office, where Fitz, Simmons and Coulson and Leah were already waiting for them.           
“Hello Nicole. We have a surprise for you.”   
“A good surprise I hope? Not something like, Luke, I am your father?” She giggled.            
“Let’s pretend I didn’t hear that and move on okay?”  
Nikki pulled her face straight and nodded.     
“An 084 has been found on these coordinates. I’ll show you them on the map, let’s see if you recognise them.”    
A map appeared on the screen, and Nikki let out an exited gasp.  
“That’s in Rotterdam! Just a couple of blocks from where I lived!”  
“Exactly, which is why we want you with us. Not only do you speak the language, you know your way around there, I assume?”   
“Like the back of my hand!”              
“Good, then this is what’s going to happen. Fitz and Simmons will go there with you, there’s a Dutch base close by. They will retrieve the object, and figure out what it is, before disposing of it safely. You will act as their guide. Can you do that?”     
“Yes, sir!” She said, completely thrilled.         
Leah spoke up. “With all due respect, what am I doing here? What purpose will I have?”  
Coulson looked at the two of them.  
“I don’t expect it to, but just in case something _does_ happen, you will be able to protect the four of you with your powers. I was going to send agent May along, but I’m afraid I need her elsewhere. Besides, the two of you are such a good team, I have no doubt that Fitz-Simmons will be in good hands.”          
“We trust you.” Simmons said kindly.             
Nikki looked back at the screen and stared at it excitedly.          
“Ommygosh, I’m going home!”

They flew towards the coordinated and located the 084 fairly quickly. It appeared to be some sort of alien orb, but they couldn’t estimate what it did without the equipment in the lab, and preferred not to touch it, as they had some bad experiences with alien viruses. They carefully collected it and brought it to the base for examination. They still had a lot of work to do, but they decided to call it a day, and allow Nikki to show them around the city. She told them about all touristic places, and practically forced them to try the local foods. “You _have_ to try kibbeling, or I will hate you forever.” She said when they stood in a marketplace, next to a place that sold all kinds of fish. She ordered two portions of this national delicacy, one for her, and one for the rest to share, and try out. It was some sort of fried fish, and Nikki seemed to love it.

After a while, everyone was feeling slightly nauseous by all the Dutch treats that Nikki kept forcing them to eat. They decided to go for a little walk around the city, exploring it a bit further. After a while, they could hear music in a nearby street. They went in to check, and saw a band playing in a square, with a small group of people surrounding it. They went in to look, since it sounded pretty good. Nikki remained silent, watching with her arms folded, and one eyebrow raised, standing in the back of the group.

And then, suddenly the band put away their instruments, and huddled together, discussing something, and looking out into the crowd every once in a while. They started a new song, but not with the instruments. They had a complicated routine of clapping and stomping, and it sounded great, as they were all in perfect rhythm with each other. One of the members walked forward into the crowd, dispersing it, and stopped right in front of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team. Suddenly from behind them, they could hear the same clapping, and they turned around to see Nikki smiling, and joining in with the routine, matching the other guys perfectly. The one that had stepped forward held out his hand, and Nikki took it, following him to the middle of the stage, where the rest was also smiling. And the two of them started to sing a duet, raising everyone’s spirits. The guy started.

_“_ _When you wake up, and realise_   
_The sun is up, you’ll have to rise_   
_But you cannot find the strength to face the day…”_   
_Your mind will slowly drive you mad_   
_With all the problems you’ve ever had_   
_And you just can’t take it anymore…”_

_“But then at night, you’re in your room_  
 _And you’re trying to fall asleep_  
 _And you’re falling through the dark parts of your mind_  
 _Tell me there’s one promise, that you’ll keep!_ ”

Nikki joined in as they sung the chorus together

_“Get up in the morning and_   
_Face the day!_   
_Because I will come all this way_   
_To make you feel better_   
_And make it okay_   
_Face the day!”_

Nikki took over, and sung the next part alone, her voice perfectly complementing that of her partner.

_“You get out of bed and grab your things_   
_But your strength is slowly fading_   
_And you feel like you can’t get back up again_   
_Your mind drifts off to dark again_   
_And you don’t know where you stand”_

_“But then you look up, and see the sun_   
_The beautiful outside world, and all_   
_The good things that you’ve ever done!”_

For the next chorus, the entire group joined in.

_“Get up in the morning and_   
_Face the day!_   
_Remember all the_   
_PMA!_   
_Because life’s worth living!”_

Everyone stopped singing and clapping, as they moved to the side of the stage, and left Nikki alone in the middle, as she sung the next part in silence.

_“And then I see you standing there_   
_All alone along the seaside_   
_A tear slowly rolling down your face_   
_But then I take your hand and say_   
_‘There has to be another way’_   
_Please don’t give up on me…”_

Everyone joined in again, and they sung the last part with as much power as they could, to try and send out the positive message. They succeeded, as they saw a couple of people in the front having to wipe away a tear. Some of the people in the crowd chanted along.

_“Get up in the morning and_   
_Face the day!_   
_Because I will come all this way_   
_To make you feel better_   
_Face the day!_   
_And don’t forget the_   
_PMA!_   
_Because life’s worth living…”_

After the song was finished, the guy who had stepped forward put his arm around Nikki, and pulled her in for a big kiss, which she greedily returned, before she accepted the large group hug that the rest of the group pulled them into. One of the guys spoke. “Dames en heren, terug van weggeweest, verwelkom Nicole!” The only other girl picked up a guitar and handed it to her, and Nikki immediately started playing. They played a couple of songs, Nikki being the guitarist, and her and her boyfriend being the lead singers. No one could deny that they were very good, as their intricate routines also involved dancing and other forms of music making, like clapping or whistling. They did everything within their power to make this a real show, which was very entertaining to watch. And it looked like they had the best fun.

After a couple of songs, they announced their last song, and the crowd quickly dispersed, leaving only the bewildered S.H.I.E.L.D. team behind. Nikki walked up to them, laughing happily. “Sorry for ditching you guys back there, but god, did I miss this.” Her friends joined her. “Guys, this is Liam.” She introduced her boyfriend. “Connor, a.k.a. the android sent by cyberlife.” She gestured at the drummer. “Cameron.” She gestured at the pianist. “And Samantha.” She pointed at the only other girl, with her dashing green hair. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, we were in a band together.” She giggled.              
“Wow, you guys are really good!” Simmons exclaimed, excited.  
“Thank you!” Connor said. “We practice a lot, but it’s all for fun. And we have a blast every time.”  
“Well, it’s a lot better now you’re back, Nick.” Liam said, and he pulled Nikki closer again, kissing her forehead.               
“You always wrote the best songs. We kind of lost our sound after you left.” Samantha said sadly.  
“Yeah, what happened? You were in a rough patch, but we expected you to be gone for a month or so. But after you left you just disappeared.” Cameron exclaimed.  
Nikki looked at the team, hesitant.  
“Let’s just say that I… emigrated. Some bad things happened, I had to get out. I’ll be staying somewhere close for a while, but I’m afraid that I’ll be heading back soon…”             
“No! I’m not leaving you! Not again!” Liam exclaimed, shocked.  
“You can’t do this Nick! We’ve only just got you back, and you’re leaving already?” Cameron asked.                
Nikki didn’t respond, but instead looked back at the team, torn.  
“I’m so sorry… But I can’t explain. Trust me, I wish I could.”       
Fitz spoke up. “Nick, you don’t have to say goodbye just yet. If you want us to go and give you some privacy, we’re perfectly fine with that.”         
“Well I’m not!” Leah suddenly spoke up and moved in between Nikki and Liam. “Exactly what are you planning to do with my best friend?” She said protectively. Nikki laughed.           
“Come on, Leah. He’s just a guy, he’s not going to hurt me!”    
“You better treat her right then… Or you’ll answer to me.” She said to Liam.        
“Calm down, Nikki, it looks like things are _heating up_ in here!” Cameron said jokingly. Everyone fell silent, and Nikki stared at him for a while, annoyed.               
“Thanks, Cameo, for the assist. I’m gonna high-five you later, before I punch you in the face! And then I’m gonna punch you in the face some more, just ‘cuz I don’t like you!” She stepped forwards. “And then I gonna hug you.” She pulled him into a hug, before bursting into laughter.            
“But Cameo, please stop the fire-puns! OMG, I’m _dying_.”  
“Don’t say that, you’ll live until you’re at least 27.”      
Nikki looked at him confused before the realisation hit. “Oh, right… that was a thing, wasn’t it?”    
Leah looked at her. “Wait, what? How d’you mean you’re gonna die at 27?”        
“It has been prophesized. I was talking with Cameron’s brother once, about my death or something…? Don’t remember how, don’t remember why, but we were. And then suddenly, he just blurted out: 27! And I asked him: Why did you say 27? But he didn’t know. So, that’s how we came to the conclusion that I’m going to die at 27.” She didn’t seem to upset, and just laughed it off.              
“You guys are insane…”      
“That’s rich, coming from you!”       
She turned back to Liam. “Anyway, don’t mind Leah, she’s just a bit protective.” And she turned back towards the S.H.I.E.L.D. team. “But no, you guys don’t have to leave! I want my new friends to meet my old friends!”        

And that’s what they did. The love between Nikki and Liam was clear, as they couldn’t keep their eyes of each other. After a while, it got late, and everyone went home, but Liam refused to leave, and just held her hand, as they stood alone in the square under the light of the lamppost, with the rest of the team far off to the side, giving them some space.   
“I’ve missed you…” He whispered quietly to her.         
Nikki didn’t answer, but instead just took his face in her hands, and kissed him softly. Liam pulled her into an embrace.  
“Will I see you tomorrow?” He asked.            
Nikki looked back at the team.          
“I’d like that. But there’s some… things I need to do first. I’ll call you, okay?”        
“I’ll hold you to that.” And Liam stole one last kiss from her, before he left into the darkness.


	14. Young love

And that was how it was going to go from that day. Every day, after ‘work’, Nikki would go out and meet her friends in the square. Naturally, she spent most time with Liam, but other times, she just continued to make music with the entire group. She had the best of fun, and it looked like she was really happy.                 
“I don’t like him.” Leah said one day.               
Nikki looked up in surprise.                
“Who? Liam? Why?”            
“He’d better treat you properly! He keeps sucking up all your attention, demands all of your time… And you’re just acting… different… I get that you want to have some time together, but don’t make him push you into doing things you don’t want, okay?”               
“Woah, jeez, Leah!” Nikki said laughingly. “Calm down! He’s not pushing me over borders! What kind of things are you talking about anyway? Doing drugs?”   
“Woah, stop! No one here is doing drugs. What?” Fitz had just entered the room.              
Nikki looked at him, an eyebrow raised. “We were talking about how we were _not_ going to do drugs. Besides, pot is legal here anyway.” She added triumphantly.     
“Not for underaged I presume.” Leah mumbled.           
Nikki looked at Leah, before she exclaimed. “How the hell do our conversations always end with these sorts of subjects?”               
“Because we’re insane.”      
Nikki looked at her angrily for a moment, before her expression softened, and she laughed.             
“That’s fair. But don’t worry, there’s nothing on the hand.”       
Fitz and Leah shot her a confused look, which she returned. But then her expression changed, and she rolled her eyes.      
“Oh! God! Sorry!” She burst into laughter. “No, that’s Nenglish. Nederlands-English. Probably because I’ve been speaking Dutch so much lately, sometimes it gets mixed up.”   
“What the hell is Nenglish?”              
“When you mix up English and Dutch, we call that Nenglish. Like, When I start pronouncing English words like they’re Dutch words -which is annoying as fuck, by the way -… Or use Dutch proverbs in English, like I just did… Or throw Dutch words into an English sentence… Or if I literally translate words that ought not to be translated, like ‘shieldtoad’, or ‘toiletglasses’ or, my personal favourite, ‘turning bitches’.” She laughed.   
“Do I even want to know what the last one means?”    
Nikki pulled up her shoulders. “French toast.”               
Leah put her hands in the air.            
“You Dutch people are insane…”       
But then she intensely looked Nikki in the eye again.    
“But now you’re distracting me! And I still don’t like your boyfriend. Just ditch him. All you need is me, right?” she said, laughing    
“Woah! Hold on, you, now. Not so fast. You do you, I’ll do me, and we won’t do each other!... Probably.” Nikki added with a wink.   
“And that’s why I love you, babe!” Leah pulled her into a hug.  
Fitz was still standing on the other side of the room, flustered, and confused as to what just happened. “I don’t understand you girls...”  
Nikki looked up at him, surprised. “Women aren’t that difficult, right? I mean, yes means yes… and no means yes! And no means no, and no means perhaps, but perhaps means yes, and perhaps means no. Makes perfect sense, right?”             
Fitz put his hands in the air, and left the room, as he left Nikki and Leah behind, rolling on the floor of laughter.                 
“I give up!”             
As he left, Fitz could just hear Leah say through her laughter:   
“Men are just like fish: getting into trouble whenever they open their mouths.”

However, to Leah’s greatest frustration, Nikki kept hanging out with Liam. It was clear that she was head over heels in love, and no one could break them apart. Most of the time, they would just make music together, sing together, or dance together, but other times, he would take her home, and she wouldn’t come back until next morning…

And everyone noticed that she looked different. Whereas she normally never wore make-up, or payed that much attention to her looks, every time she went out the door now, she looked amazing, having put a lot of time and effort into looking good. Her shorts became shorter and shorter every day, and her shirts tighter. Her bright, red lipstick matched her red fingernails, and her eyeliner left a dark line around her eyes. Suddenly, she didn’t look quite so young anymore…

But apart from that, the team had also rarely seen her so happy. The only times she’d be like this, was after she’d been to visit her sister, and when she and Leah had caused some mischief. She was practically glowing.

“What do you love about him so much?” Simmons asked one time, genuinely interested. “He seems like a nice guy.”            
“He’s just very sweet. He was the first person I ever really opened up to, after… my home situation…” She swallowed. “But he was there for me. We met one day on the train. I don’t even remember where I was going…” I was just sitting in a nearly empty train, looking out the window, singing a little. I had been writing songs for a while, and already had a cheap guitar that I had bought myself. And… he suddenly sat down next to me. I was shy, and to be honest, slightly startled at first, so I asked him why he sat down next to me. He pointed to the empty train and pretended all other seats to be full.” She laughed, and gave a warm smile, as she remembered. “He said that I had a lovely voice, and he thought I was beautiful. I was completely startled, but it looked like he genuinely meant it. So… he asked me where I was going, and then he asked if he could join me there. In the end, we didn’t even do that, and he took me out for lunch instead. That was when he told me that he was in a band, and they were still looking for a female singer. So, he introduced me to them, and I’ve been in that group ever since.       
“That’s so sweet.”                
“Anyway, you know about the mask I’ve been wearing, about all my life, always putting on a brave face. Most people just accept it, but he didn’t. He saw right through me. At first… I thought that was going to scare him away, but then he sort of made it his mission to make me feel better… and we kissed. I trusted him, you know. Everything just felt so… safe. And that’s when I also showed him my powers. But he still never stopped loving me.”   
“It’s nice to have someone like that…”            
Nikki looked at her mischievously.    
“What? You mean Leopold?” She winked.      
“Oh, come on, Nikki! How many times do I have to tell you that that’s none of your business!”        
“AH!” Nikki exclaimed happily. “So, you _do_ admit that there’s something going on!”          
“I didn’t say that!”               
“Yeah, but you didn’t _not_ say it.”       
But before Simmons could respond, Nikki had run away, hands in the air, and cheering.


	15. The orb

Fitz and Simmons spent most of their time working on the 084. Nikki sometimes looked on fascinated, but her intellect didn’t quite match theirs, so she couldn’t help that much. Leah was mostly bored, so she spent most of her time training in the shooting range, as she was still trying to practice that.           
“So, how much do we know at this point?” Nikki asked.             
“Well…” Fitz begun. “It is emitting a lot of power, so I think it might be some sort of weapon. Then again, isn’t every 084 at this point?”  
“We also found traces of some sort of alien-DNA on it, but we’re still figuring out what those might be.” Simmons added.   
Nikki looked at the orb, fascinated. She held her hand above it.  
“Woah, I can feel that energy you were talking about, Fitz.”      
He looked around at her. “Better not touch that, Nick.”              
Nikki sighed. “I’m not an idiot! Still… it doesn’t feel dangerous…”  
But then, when Fitz turned around again, Nikki picked it up anyway.  
“Nikki, no!” Simmons exclaimed.      
The orb started to glow, and they could see the energy transferring itself into Nikki. But Nikki didn’t seem all that disturbed.                 
“Woah, this is really weird, guys.”     
“Nikki, put that down. You’re going to get yourself killed!”        
“No… I don’t… I don’t think it’s hurting me.” She said carefully. “It actually feels like it’s empowering me…”                 
She looked at the orb in her hand, fascinated.               
Fitz shot a worried look at Simmons.               
“Well, that doesn’t sound good…”    
Simmons tried to get through to her one last time.      
“Nikki, we don’t know what that thing does. Put it down, right now!”  
“Fine.” And she put it back on the table.         
The orb stopped glowing, and Nikki turned back to normal. Fitz and Simmons both gave a sigh of relief, before Simmons walked up to Nikki, clearly very annoyed.        
“Nicole, we really need to work on your impulsivity.” Simmons said, as she was quickly trying to see if she was hurt.                
“Wow, you used my full name, you must be really serious.”       
She rolled her eyes, pushed Simmons away, and put her hands on the table, leaning down on it. To everyone’s great surprise, it dented. Nikki quickly pulled back her hands, and looked at them, before she brought them back to the metal table, and carefully, and with ease, brought it back it its original shape.                 
“Ooooh. So t _hat’s_ what that does.” She said fascinated.             
“Super strength?” Fitz asked, as he looked from Nikki, to Simmons, to the data on the screens. Nikki in the meantime walked around the room, testing the extent of her new abilities.   
“This is really cool!” She exclaimed, as she was bending metal objects, and picking up very heavy things with ease.               
“Nikki, just calm down for a second, please, we don’t know what the consequences are!”                 
But right as she said that, Nikki felt her strength fading, as she left another dent in the table that the couldn’t form back. She looked at her hands again.      
“I think it stopped.” She said, slightly disappointed. “I suppose it works just as long as you’ve held the orb for…”       
“Well, good!” Simmons said, still annoyed, as she moved back to her. “Now come with me, I just want to check you over to see if that thing didn’t leave a mark on you. What were you thinking?”   
“Aren’t you ever going to get tired of asking me that?” Nikki giggled.

After a quick run-through, it turned out that Nikki was mostly fine. But Simmons still wasn’t happy with her.          
“Don’t ever do that again.”                
“Why not? It worked, didn’t it? You’ve been trying to find out what that thing does for a week now, and now we know. Sometimes you just have to take a risk! Step outside your comfort-zone and live a little! Besides, I won’t die until 27, so what’s the harm?”       
“No, Nikki. I’ve got the feeling that, just because you’re inhuman, you think that you’re better than us. But you’re not invincible! And don’t use that little joke of your friend in situations like this! Something could happen to you, just as easily as something can happen to me or Fitz. You’re inhuman, not a god, and definitely, not immortal. We talked about this, you can’t keep putting your life on the line like that!”                 
“Never tell me wat I can-”   
“Or cannot do. Yes, I know. You keep saying that.”       
She fell silent.        
“Nikki, just because your parents never believed in you, does not mean you have to keep proving to us how strong, smart and brave you are… We’d much rather you’d be safe. We care about you, and we’d hate to lose you. You deserve to be on this team, but for your skills and your heart, not as a disposable Guinea pig to sacrifice every time.”  
Nikki looked up. Her expression had changed, and she looked at Simmons with a sad look in her eyes.                 
“I’m sorry, Jemma.” She said softly. “I promise I’ll be more careful.”  
She pulled her into a hug.    
“Thank you.”


	16. The mole

Until that point, the job had been fairly easy. Of course, it couldn’t stay like that for long, and one day, it all collapsed.         
“Guys… where is the orb?” Fitz asked, confused, as they entered the lab that day. The place was trashed, the equipment destroyed, and the orb was gone.        
“Wait, how did this happen? What about security?” Nikki exclaimed.  
Fitz walked over to the computer, trying to find the camera-footage. It showed a hooded person, trashing the place with a bat, before taking the orb and leaving.             
“Well, I can't see anyone leaving. Which can only mean that they're still here...”             
“How is this possible?” Simmons asked. “We were the only people who knew where the orb was hidden right?”    
Nikki put her hand in her hair.           
“Well, I mean… I told Liam… but he was just really worried where I was all the time, and he’s my boyfriend, so of course I told him…”  
“You did what?”   
“He promised me that he wasn’t going to tell anyone! Are you seriously suspecting my boyfriend right now? I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation!”  
They heard a gun clicking behind them.         
“Indeed, there is.”               
Liam was standing in the doorway, gun raised, orb in his hand.  
“Liam?” Nikki asked carefully, as she took as step closer. “What are you doing? What’s going on? Did you follow me here?”  
“Hydra was also after the orb, but unfortunately, S.H.I.E.L.D. had already taken it before we got there. I wonder what kind of glory they’ll bestow on me when I give them the orb and give them the location of this base…”           
Nikki swallowed.  
“What are you talking about? Are you Hydra?”            
Nikki’s eyes were filled with disbelief.             
“Clever girl. Though unfortunately, not clever enough to foresee this.”  
“But… Liam… You know what those people did to me when they found me. They captured and tortured me, why are you helping them?”     
Liam laughed.       
“You really don’t know do you? _I_ was the one that told Hydra about your powers!”           
Tears sprung into her eyes.               
“No… I don’t believe it… you’re being controlled! They must have brainwashed you some way!”    
“Oh, I am. See, when I met you, you were so sweet and kind. I really did care for you. But then I met _her_. She showed me into Hydra and told me about all the wonderful things we could do together. Nicole… I’m in love!”  
He stepped closer and put the gun to her head.           
“Just not with you.”            
Nikki just stood there, frozen, heartbroken, until Leah stepped forward.               
“Get away from her, you asshole!”  
She used her powers to blind him, she pulled Nikki and the rest of the team with her. Nikki didn’t cooperate, nor did she resist. She had lost all her will, hope and strength. When they were safe, Leah looked at Nikki, worried.    
“Nick, are you okay?”         
She tried to reach out for her, but she took a step back from them.  
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know…” She brought her hands to her face, and slid down the wall, shocked, horrified.               
“Nikki, you couldn’t have known…”  
“Yeah, but I _should_ have! I... I told him everything! And I mean absolutely _everything_! About the orb, about my powers, about your powers, about the base… This is all my fault…!  
In the distance they could hear footsteps and a voice.                
“Get back here, you witch!”              
Leah, Fitz, and Simmons looked at each other. Leah tried to pull Nikki back to her feet, but she resisted.                
“Come on, Nick! We have to go!”     
“No… just leave me… I can’t…” She was in complete shock. Leah took one last look at her.               
“We’ll come back for you, I promise!”            
She ran down the hallway, in the direction where Liam was coming from. She managed to lure him away into the other direction.  
“What is she doing? She’s going to get herself killed!” Fitz exclaimed.  
“No, she’s providing a distraction. We have to contact Coulson and call for backup. It’s the only way.”                
They took one last look at Nikki, but they knew that there was nothing they could do. They left.   

In the meanwhile, Leah had caught up with Liam. She was planning to blind him, and take him out, but he had already taken precautions.  
“How d’you like my new glasses?” He asked.                
He was wearing some kind of sunglasses, which shielded his eyes from even the brightest light.     
“Nikki told me everything about you, and your powers. So, Hydra made a little gift for me.”            
Leah tried to blind him, but it didn’t work. She wanted to escape, but Liam suddenly darted forward, and grabbed her by the neck, chocking her. The power of the orb made him incredibly strong, as he lifted her of the ground with easy.     
“I’ll give you a choice… Come with me, and fight for Hydra, or die.”  
“Never…” She just managed to say.  
Liam threw her across the room, slamming her into the wall, before she fell to the ground, gasping.                
“Is that the best you can do? I never liked you. I guess now I know why. No one hurts Nikki, but me!”                 
She tried to use her powers to make herself invisible, and escape Liam, but she was too weak, and just kept flickering. Liam walked towards her and pointed his gun at her.      
“Leah!”   
Fitz and Simmons had come into the room. They had contacted Coulson but needed to keep Liam in place until backup arrived. However, they had no way to defend themselves. Liam moved over to them. They tried to fight him, but he was too strong from the power that the orb gave him, and soon, they too were lying on the floor, weak. Liam turned around, and pointed his gun at them, ready to make the shot to finish them off.     
“No, you don’t!”  Leah grunted, and with her last strength, she got up, and moved over to him. She managed to loosen his grip on the gun. There was a struggle, the gun flew across the room, and fell down on the other side, out of reach. Liam gave Leah a firm kick, and she fell down again. She was exhausted. She tried to get up again, but she was too weak. It was over. They had lost.


	17. Sacrifice your heart

Leah was on the floor, looking up at Liam. With her last strength, she kept trying to blind him, but it was useless.   
He was still holding the orb and coming in closer to her.  
“Give it up, you’re defenceless against me.”  
He took out a knife and came in for the kill. Leah just closed her eyes, preparing herself for the end.

But then, a gunshot was heard from the other side of the room. Liam froze, dropped the knife, and fell to the ground, as blood slowly spilled onto his clothes. On the other side of the room, Nikki was standing, gun raised, and tears in her eyes. She was trembling, and the gun slipped from her hands, as she brought her hands to her mouth, horrified, and fell to her knees. She crawled over to Liam and knelt beside him.           
“Liam… I’m so sorry…”        
She held his hand, as she bent over his dying body, crying her heart out.               
“Nikki?”  
“I love you… Why do I still love you?” She whispered.  
With his last strength, he brought his hand to her face, cupping it.  
“Because that’s who you are. You’re too kind. That’s why I fell in love with you…”             
He coughed blood.              
“But it’s also why I left you…”           
Nikki gasped, and closed her eyes. She couldn’t look at him. She picked up the knife from the floor, and with one firm thrust, shoved it in his gut. Tears were streaming down her face.   
“Goodbye…” She said.        
Liam gasped for air, but then she slowly closed his eyes, and died. Nikki opened her eyes slightly, her vision blurred with tears. She bent over him, and kissed his dead body one last time, before she rested her forehead on his, and cupping his face with her hands, just sat there, crying.  
The room was silent, and the only noise to be heard, were her silent sobs.

 _3 days later…_  
Nikki was sitting in her room, alone. She was staring blankly into space. After they got back to the home base, she directly retreated, and for the past few days, she’d talked to no one. She didn’t eat, she didn’t sleep, she just sat there. She had stopped crying a while ago, she was just too tired for it now. She was exhausted, but her dreams were haunted by nightmares, every time she closed her eyes.              

A couple of days later, she finally left her room. But she surprised everybody in the way in which she did so.           
“Hey, guys!” She said happily, as she moved into the room.  
“Anything exciting happen, the past few days?”  
But no one responded, as they all looked at her, and then to each other. Leah was the first to get up. She moved over to Nikki and pulled her into a warm hug. Then Simmons, then Daisy, then Fitz. It took a moment, as they stood there in silence, but then Nikki accepted the hug, as tears sprung back into her eyes, and she completely gave in to her grief.

That night, Leah visited her in her room.        
“I know it’s probably a stupid question, but, how are you feeling?”  
Nikki looked up at her and gestured for her to sit down next to her.  
“It hurts… why does it hurt so much?”           
Leah pulled her closer, and Nikki rested her head on her shoulder.  
“Because you loved him. You may doubt about the validity of everything right now, but, that was real. And I’m so sorry for you, Nicole… I really wished for you to be happy…”               
“You don’t have to be sorry… I do. This was all my fault…”        
She gasped for air as she tried to hold back more tears.             
“What are you talking about?”         
“I told him… I told him everything. About my powers… about yours… about S.H.I.E.L.D… about the orb… None of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for me…”               
“No… No, I suppose it wouldn’t… but that doesn’t make you to blame, Nikki. The only one to blame is him. And not just for what he did to S.H.I.E.L.D., but what he did to _you_.”             
They fell silent, and Leah reached for Nikki’s hand, holding it sweetly. Until Nikki finally spoke again.  
“All my life… everyone who’s ever been close to me has either betrayed me, or left me… My parents broke me down ‘till I was nothing more than their fucking carpet… And then they died. My sister left me… Liam played me, cheated me, and used me, before he forced me to personally end his life…”                
She swallowed hard as her voice was drowned out by her tears.  
“All I ever wanted was to be able to trust someone… who’d be there for me when I needed them… But everyone just ends up either using or abusing me. Why do I keep falling for that?”  
Leah pulled her closer, as Nikki cried out.       
“Are you going to leave me?” she asked.        
Leah looked her in the eye, and firmly said. “Never. Don’t even think it. I will never betray you.”    
Nikki wiped her tears away, and laid down, resting her head on Leah’s lap.           
“Well, at least I learned one thing from all of this… A relationship is like a fart. If you have to force it, it’s probably shit.”      
She gave a hollow little laugh.          
“Thank you… for being here.”           
Leah stroke her hair.           
“Anytime.”            
Nikki sat up, so that Leah could stand up and leave the room.  
“Just hang in there, okay? There’s a lot of people who are worried about you. They really care for you, you know? Don’t give up on them.” She said from the doorway, and then she was gone.

Nikki got up and took out her laptop. Without a plan, she took out her microphone, and started to sing.

_“There’s a silence in the air tonight,_   
_And it just won’t let me go,_   
_Because you left me far behind,_   
_And from now, I’ll be alone…_   
_And the stars, they start to cry,_   
_as the tears fall from my eyes,_   
_Onto the pavement,_   
_Oh,_   
_Onto the pavement._

_Because ever since the day you left,_   
_That hole inside of me,_   
_I’ve been trying to fill it, in the night,_   
_With the moonlight…_

_Can you hear me?_   
_Can you hear me?_   
_As I’m standing in the moonlight,_   
_And I sing this song to you…_   
_Can you feel it?_   
_Can you feel it?_   
_As the loneliness, creeps in my bones,_   
_And slowly turns my heart to stone,_   
_I miss you…_   
_Oh,_   
_I miss you…_

_Can you please, give me a sign you’re listening…?_

_I remember every fight,_   
_All the times you broke my heart,_   
_Can you recall, all the times we’ve cried,_   
_And when it all fell apart?_   
_But I can’t forget ‘bout all the times,_   
_You held my hand to soothe me,_   
_When I was lost,_   
_Oh,_   
_I was so lost..._

_Can you hear me?_   
_Can you hear me?_   
_As I’m standing in the moonlight,_   
_And I sing this song to you…_   
_Can you feel it?_   
_Can you feel it?_   
_As the loneliness, creeps in my bones,_   
_And slowly turns my heart to stone,_   
_I miss you._   
_Oh,_   
_I miss you._

_Was she really worth it?_   
_Was she everything what you wanted?_   
_Can you enjoy your rest at night,_   
_When all my dreams are haunted,_   
_By your face,_   
_When you said, you never loved me…_

_Can you hear me?_   
_Can you hear me?_   
_As I’m standing in the moonlight,_   
_And I sing this song to you…_   
_Can you feel it?_   
_Can you feel it?_   
_As the loneliness, creeps in my bones,_   
_And slowly turns my heart to stone,_   
_I miss you._   
_Oh,_   
_I miss you.”_


	18. The 084

_6 months later…_

The door opened, and Fitz and Simmons walked through the door of Coulson’s office. “You wanted to see us?” Simmons asked. He looked up at them and gestured for them to sit down. He then stood up, and opened a secret vault under the table, before picking up a strange object with a piece of cloth and putting it carefully on the table.   
“Hopefully I don’t have to emphasize that everything I am about to tell you is strictly classified?”   
“No of course not!”              
The object was a little wooden staff, about as long as your lower arm. The wood was glossy and pitch-black, but beautifully decorated with symbols carved all around it. “This 084 was found a couple of days ago, not far from here. At first it didn’t seem like much, until some resident found it, and tried to pick it up. I advise you two to only pick it up using the cloth, that poor man still hasn’t recovered from the burns.”                  
“And you want us to, what, figure out what it is?” Fitz asked.     
“Exactly. And find a cure for those burns. For some reason, they won’t heal.”       
“Understood. Is there anything else we need to know?”             
“There’s nothing more we _do_ know.”               
“We’ll get to it then.”

They were standing in a private lab, trying everything they could to monitor the strange object, with computers and machines hooked up to it.      
“There are markings on it… What do you think they mean?”     
“I don’t know, we’ll first need to figure out what language it is, and somehow, I don’t think there’s a dictionary for it…”                
Simmons walked over to the screens and examined the data. She let out a little gasp.        
“Look at this Fitz! It’s… it’s like it’s alive…” Simmons said, fascinated. He came in to look. “That’s strange, how could that be? That’s impossible.” He looked at the monitors, confused, as Simmons walked back to the table, holding her hand just above the object, but she quickly pulled it away again. “It’s… vibrating?” she brought her hand closer to the object again, the closer it got, the more it started to vibrate, and for some reason even she didn’t understand, she couldn’t resist picking it up. She was mesmerized by the object and moved her hand even closer. Fitz turned around just in time to see it. “No! Jemma! Stop!” He screamed, but he was too late. She had already picked it up. Fitz rushed over to her, ready to pull the thing from her hands, but then he noticed that she didn’t get burned. Instead, the marking just glowed, like a fire was burning inside of it. They just looked on in awe. “It doesn’t burn you?” He asked, confused. But Simmons didn’t respond. She just looked at the object, like she was in a trance. “Jemma…?” Fitz asked carefully, clearly concerned. He pulled the thing from her hand using the cloth, and put it back on the table, before turning around to her and holding her face with both hands. “Jemma!” It was like she awoke from a trance. “Fitz?” She moved her hand to her head. “I think I need to sit down for a moment, that was freaky…” They sat down.     
“Jemma? What happened? Are you all right?”              
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just feel tired and have a slight headache. Yet, somehow, I don’t think it was going to hurt me.”                
“Well it certainly looked like it was hurting you! Why the hell did you pick that thing up? Do you remember the last time that Nikki did that with the last 084?”      
“Yeah, I do. And I wasn’t planning on this, it just happened… It called out to me… like it was trying to somehow… communicate with me. Though in a way that I didn’t understand… I felt it. I wondered before if this thing might be alive, but I actually felt it.”            
“Well. What did you feel then?”        
“I’m not sure. Yet, somehow, it felt familiar. Safe. Trusted… It was like I recognised it… and _it_ recognised me.”         
“Either way, maybe it’s a good idea to just leave it for now. Maybe you just got lucky, let’s not touch it again okay? I don’t want to see you getting hurt by some weird alien virus again.” He kissed her forehead.                 
They quickly cleared out he room, reported back to Coulson, and hid the object somewhere secure. They would check in on it again the next day, but for now, it looked like Simmons needed to rest. They moved to Fitz’s room, to relax a little, completely unaware that the 084 had now awakened a new threat…


	19. Betrayal

After the exhausting events of today, Fitz and Simmons were sitting in Fitz’ room, Fitz’ arm around Simmons, and they were discussing the crazy things that had happened to them, the past week alone. Simmons was still exhausted, but she looked better than right after she'd touched the staff. She rested her head on Fitz' shoulder, while she was softly stroking her hair.  
"Are you sure you're okay?" He asked concerned.  
"I am now." She said, and she looked up at him.  
They both leaned in closer, and shared a warm, sweet kiss. Fitz wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer.

Suddenly, there was a light knock on the door. Slightly startled, they broke the kiss, and looked at the door. “Come in.” Fitz called out, slightly confused, as they weren’t expecting any company. Nikki opened the door, walked in, and closed it behind her. “Oh, hello Nikki.” Simmons said, smiling. “Is there anything we can help you with?” Nikki didn’t move. She just stayed there, in front of the door, blocking it. “Yeah, I was just wondering where you two were all day? Some secret mission? Was it fun?” Fitz raised an eyebrow. “Come on Nick, you know we can’t talk about that sort of stuff. It’s classified.” Nikki still didn’t move away from the door but kept smiling. “You were working on an 084, weren’t you? Let me guess, some weird wooden staff with strange symbols, which glowed when you picked it up?” Fitz pulled back his arm from Simmons and sat up straight. “W- wait. How did you know that?” Something was wrong. And Nikki was still blocking the door, still smiling. Fitz stood up, pulling Simmons from the couch, and behind him, shielding her. Nikki reached for something behind her and pulled out a gun. Fitz’s eyes widened. “Whoa, wait, Nikki, what are you doing? Just… just think about this okay? Put down the gun, and we can talk this through. No one needs to get hurt. Please...” Nikki smile got even wider. “Don’t worry. It’s just an ICER. And this is nothing personal.” She pointed it towards them. “Nikki, wait.” Simmons pleaded. “We’re friends, right? What do you-” But her sentence was cut short by the muffled shot of the ICER, and Fitz fell to the ground. Seconds later, there was another shot, and everything went black.

When she woke up, she couldn’t see anything. It took a moment for her to find out why, but then she noticed that she was in a basement. Her hands were tied behind her back to some pipes, and her feet were duck taped together. In front of her, she saw Fitz, also tied up.      
“Good. You’re awake.” He said. “Are you okay?”         
“Yeah, I’m fine. But, where are we?”              
“I don’t know. Some sort of basement?”        
“I figured out that much myself, thank you very much. But where’s Nikki?”          
“I don’t know. Maybe she just left us here.”  
But right as he said that, the door opened, and Nikki walked through. Fitz felt a wave of anger when he saw that she was still smiling. “Hey guys!” She said like this was the most normal thing in the world. “I’m awfully sorry about this, but it was the best I could think of on short notice. And like I said, it’s nothing personal.”              
“Let us go, right now, Nikki!” Fitz said angrily. “I thought we were friends. Why are you doing this?”                 
“Oh. We ARE friends. And I don’t wanna hurt you. But I just need to ask you a few questions. Questions that, unfortunately, I’m afraid you would never answer out of free will.”              
A strange look went over her eyes as she looked at Simmons. They had never seen it before, but they immediately felt uneasy because of it. It wasn’t so much evil, or dark. But sadistic and psychopathic. Fitz shot a quick panicked look at Simmons, and then back to Nikki. “Please, whatever you’re going to do, hurt me, leave Jemma alone.” But this time Simmons spoke. “Fitz, you don’t have to protect me. And she’s not going to hurt us. I don’t buy it. She’s bluffing.” Nikki slowly walked over to Simmons, who was looking at her defiantly, and knelt beside her. “I wouldn’t bet on it, Jemma. Don’t test me. You might regret it.” Simmons looked back at her. She tried to look calm and determined, but the look in her eyes gave her away. “Do your worst.” She said. Fitz tugged on his restraints, and tried to get up, but he was tied down too tight. “If you touch her, I’ll kill you!” He yelled at Nikki. She stood up and turned her attention to him. “I’d like to see you try. I’m practically immortal. Sure, there are ways to kill me, but I don’t feel like telling you those...” “Wait, you’re immortal?” Fitz asked, surprised, and confused, but Nikki didn’t elaborate, and just addressed both again. “Don’t you at least want to know what I want? Maybe it’s not so bad, you give me an answer, I let you go, and I’ll be on my way. No one needs to get hurt, end of story.”              
“Fine, what do you want?”                
“So glad you asked, Leopold! See, like I asked before: You were working on an 084, right? A little wooden staff that didn’t seem to do anything, yet when Jemma touched it, it lit up, but only her.”    
“Wait. You know why that is? What is that thing?”      
“Don’t worry too much about that okay? You just have to know that I want it. So, if you could just tell me where you left it, I can go and collect it.”        
“So, it’s a weapon then? You wouldn’t avoid the question like that if it wasn’t. What do you need a weapon for?” Fitz asked.    
“Because it’s mine, and I just want it back. All you need to know is that it had been in my possession for a long time, before I lost it, and S.H.I.E.L.D. stole it. I just want it back, and once I have it, I’ll let you go. Simple as that.”    
“Well. You’re in a bit of trouble then because we’re never going to tell you where that thing is.” Simmons said.        
She was trying to sound brave, but anyone could tell that she was terrified. And Nikki knew this. “Fine. You know what? I’m going to give you a moment to discuss, I’ll be back shortly. Don’t worry, I won’t be long. Hopefully you’ll have changed your mind by the time I get back.” And with that said, she left the room.

Fitz and Simmons were alone again, and Simmons dropped her brave face. “Fitz. I’m scared.” She said quietly. “Why does this always happen to us? I don’t want to go through this again, I can’t.” Tears were welling up in her eyes.        
“Hey, Jemma. It’s okay. I won’t let anything happen to you. I’d like to see her try.” He said comforting.                 
“Let’s not wait for that, though. Is there anything around you that you can cut those ties with?”    
She felt around in the dark, but her hands were tied down too tight. She could barely move them, and she could see Fitz struggling with the same problem.  
“Jemma, I don’t think there is a way out… Not unless we take the one she gives us.”          
She looked up in surprise. “What are you saying? Just telling her where that weapon is? Fitz, we’ve gone through this before, and the next thing we knew, Hive was on this planet. We cannot be selfish like that again!”    
“Jemma…” He said when he realised what she was saying, “that’s out of the question. You saw the look on her face, we both know what she’s going to do…”  
Simmons looked up at the ceiling. “Well, I’m just gonna have to accept it. I’m strong, I can take it. I have to.”          
“But Jemma.” Fitz’ voice was almost inaudible, “Even if you can, I don’t think I will be able to do the same. That’s the reason this keeps happening, I’m just not strong enough to see you get hurt.”  
“You have to Fitz. Promise me. Leave me with one less thing to worry about, please.”       
“I can’t…-”             
“But you have to. I forbid you to tell her where that thing is. No matter what she does, no matter how much she hurts me, do not tell her, please. Look away if you have to. Just close your eyes. I won’t blame you for that.”        
A silence fell over the room. “Fitz, I’m scared. I don’t want to die, and I don’t want you to die, but we can’t be selfish. We have to keep that thing hidden, or everyone we love, all our friends will get hurt as well… Please… just let her kill me.” But Fitz just closed his eyes and avoided the pleading look that Simmons gave him before he fell silent.

And then, they heard footsteps outside the door, and a key turning in the lock. Nikki walked in, carrying a gun that she laid down on a table that was standing against the wall. “That should have been enough time to think. So, have you decided? Are you going to help me, or are you going to make this difficult?” She first looked at Simmons.            
“Never.”                
“Pity. What about you, Leopold?”    
He hesitated, tears welling up in his eyes. “No, Fitz!” Simmons screamed. “You can’t!” But Nikki had already walked up to her, and taped her mouth shut. “I know where you stand Jemma, but let’s allow Leopold to make his own decision okay?” She had said it with another sadistic smile. Fitz had closed his eyes, but he was trembling, and it was clear that he was close to breaking down. Nikki folded her arms over each other. “You disappoint me guys. I had so hoped that I wouldn’t have to do this.” She picked up the gun and loaded it very demonstratively. Fitz was now breathing heavily, and looked back to Simmons, who was pulling on her restraints as hard as she could to try and break free, as muffled screams came from her taped mouth. It was clear that she was panicking, though at this point, it was hard to tell if it was because of Nikki, or to convince Fitz to stay quiet. “Please. Leave her alone! I don’t care if you hurt me but leave her alone!” he pleaded. Nikki aimed the gun at Simmons. “NOOOO!” Fitz shouted, as she carelessly fired the gun once. Simmons let out a scream as the bullet entered her leg, and her jeans coloured red with blood. She closed her eyes firmly, breathing heavily, trying to resist the pain. Fitz panicked, as he tugged on the restraints, trying to break free. “Please, don’t do this!” He cried.      
“Then tell me where the 084 is!”      
She fired again, this time aiming for her abdomen. Simmons let out another scream, as she started to bleed out. Fast. “Please. Just… just give me some time to think.” Fitz begged. Nikki raised her eyebrows. “Think? That’s what you want to do? Don’t you want to save her? You have to THINK about it?” She let out a little laugh. “Woah, Jemma, maybe I was wrong. Maybe he doesn’t love you. That must hurt more than those bullets, doesn’t it?” She said tauntingly. But Simmons didn’t seem to care. At this point, she had stopped resisting, as she was clearly growing weaker due to the blood loss. Nikki walked over to her and put the barrel to her head. Simmons closed her eyes. “Well in that case, I’m going to give you one more chance Leo. If you don’t care about her getting hurt, maybe this will convince you.” Her finger was on the trigger, and she pushed it down slightly. After that she knew that she had won. Fitz stopped tugging on his restraints, and lowered his head, crying. “No, please. Don’t kill her. Spare Jemma, I’ll do anything.” He said quietly. Tears were rolling down over Simmons’ face. She was weak but shot one last pleading look to Fitz. He ignored her. “Please. Just let her go, I’ll do anything you want. I’ll tell you where that dammed thing is. But please, let Jemma live.” Nikki lowered the gun.     
“Tell me then.”     
“It’s in the base. Coulson didn’t want to store it away until we knew what it was, so we locked in his office, there’s a secret vault under de table!”           
Nikki put the gun back to Simmons’ head.      
“You’d better not be lying.”               
“NO! I’m not! It’s there, I swear!”     
Nikki lowered the gun again.             
“Alright then.” She walked up to Fitz. “I will go there now to collect my prize. But if you are lying” She knelt down before him and grabbed him by the throat. “I will make sure that both your death’s will be slow and painful, you understand?” Fitz nodded quickly. “This is your last chance to change your answer. Are you sure that that’s where I will find the 084?”     
“Yes, I swear.”       
She left the room again.

Simmons looked up at Fitz, her eyes were filled with disappointment and betrayal, but he couldn’t bear to look at her. “I wasn’t just going to let her kill you. I couldn’t. I’m so sorry Jemma... I love you.” But then she closed her eyes, and passed out.


	20. Desperate hours

But Nikki didn’t return. Fitz and Simmons just sat there, as she slowly bled out, and time passed on. Fitz had tried to call out to Simmons a couple of times but couldn’t get a response anymore. He feared for the worst. He kept moving his wrists, sometimes tugging on the restraints forcefully, and other times trying to carefully move free. He needed to get out, if only to stop the bleeding, and keep Simmons alive just a little while longer. But he was unsuccessful, and only managed to cut himself on the ties.

After what felt like forever, he could hear voices and footsteps on the floor above him. He was cautious at first, until he realised that they didn’t belong to Nikki. “Down here!” he screamed out, trying to get the attention of whomever was up there. A couple of moments later, light flooded into the room, and agent May walked in, her gun raised. But then she saw Fitz and Simmons and lowered it again, quickly running over to Simmons. “Simmons. SIMMONS! Talk to me. It’s me, agent May.” But she didn’t get a response. “COULSON!” she shouted. “They’re down here! We need medical! Right now!” “Is she alive?” Fitz begged. She quickly tried to find a pulse and found that it was very weak. “Barely.”

The rest went quickly. Fitz and Simmons were cut loose, and Simmons was brought to the medical bay. And then, Fitz was sitting in the Zephyr, as they flew back to the base. “How did you find us?” He asked quietly. It just didn’t make sense. Apparently, they had been in an entirely different country, thousands of miles from the base. How had Nikki brought them there? “The alarm went off.” Coulson answered. “We found Nikki trying to break into the safe in my office. Whatever kind of plans she had, she didn’t work them out very well…”

 _A couple of hours earlier…_  
_Nikki was in Coulson’s office. She wanted to look for the safe when suddenly an alarm went off. She quickly looked around and saw that she had triggered a motion sensor. “Shit…” She cursed quietly. She hesitated for a moment, but then ignored the alarm, and hurriedly looked for the safe, refusing to leave without what she came for. But then the door opened, and Coulson and May walked in with guns raised. When they saw her, they were confused, but they didn’t lower their guns. “Nicole?” Coulson asked. “What are you doing? What do you want?” It was then that he saw her reaching for the safe. “Agent Dace! Get away from that safe, turn around, and put your hands in the air.” Nikki hesitated for a moment, but then got up, and put her hands in the air, with a guilty expression on her face as though she had just stolen a cookie from the cookie jar. Slightly jokingly, and a lot less serious that she should have, been, she asked, “Now… about this… ‘situation’ that I don’t like… Exactly how hard am I screwed?” But she didn’t get an answer, as Agent May immediately iced her._

 _When she woke up, she was locked in a containment module, Coulson standing beside her, with his hand on his gun._  
_“Now, Nicole. You’re going to sit up straight and tell us exactly why the hell you were in my office. What were you looking for?”_  
_Nikki sat up and looked at him. She laughed._  
_“THAT is what you’re worried about? Phil, I thought you ran a tight ship. Haven’t you noticed that some people are missing?”_  
_Agent May took a step forward. “What are you talking about? Where are Fitz and Simmons?”_  
_But Nikki just sat back, awfully calm for the situation. “Just give me the staff and let me go, and I’ll make sure that they’ll return to you safely. Doesn’t that sound like a good deal?”_  
_“You are trying to trade their lives for a wooden staff? We trusted you! But now I’m starting to realise, that you are not who you say you are? You are not going anywhere until you tell us what the hell is going on!”_  
_Nikki sat back upright, as she looked him in the eyes carefully, trying to read his thoughts. Her smile faltered, as she realised that he wasn’t bluffing, and they were not going to let her go. She got up and folded her arms, standing in front of him daringly._  
_“They’re in the basement of my old home, in the Netherlands. That house is technically mine now, so I felt like I wouldn’t be bothered there.”_  
_Coulson looked at her dumbstruck. “That’s the other side of the world! How did you get them there?”_  
_But she didn’t elaborate. “I suggest you hurry though. I doubt Jemma will live to see the morning...”_  
_Coulson charged her, pushing her against the wall. “What are you talking about? What did you do?”_  
_But Nikki kept her face calm and smiled._  
_“Tick tock, Phil, tick tock.”_  
_He looked around at May. “Ready the quinjet, now!” And they rushed out the room._

“Can you tell us what she wanted? Because we suddenly had to lock up a valued member of the team, found you and agent Simmons locked up in a basement, with her now being in IC, and we have no idea why.” Coulson insisted. Fitz looked at Daisy and May, who were also in the room, and then back to Coulson. “It was about… our assignment from yesterday.” He said carefully. Coulson reconsidered for a moment, before he asked him to continue, of the opinion that everyone should get all the facts. “Somehow, Nikki knew about the 084. I swear, we haven’t talked about it to anyone, but she knew. And she knew exactly what it was too. She wanted to know where we left it, so that she could reclaim it. She came to our room, ICED us, and then we just woke up in that basement. I have no idea how she was even able to get us there.”          
“Okay, so, she kidnapped you. Locked you up somewhere on the other side of the world. Tortured you for information about some strange alien object. And then somehow hopped back to the base, in the middle of Coulson’s’ office, which was locked, mind you. My main question right now is, where the hell did she learn how to freaking teleport, because that’s the only explanation I can think of.” Daisy concluded.             
“Exactly. Just think about the other things she might be hiding from us.” Coulson said.     
“She also told us that she’s basically immortal, so that’s new.” Fitz told them.     
They all looked like they had many questions, but they knew they weren’t going to get any answers. Instead, Coulson asked: “What else did she say about the 084?”             
“Just that it was a weapon, and that it had been in her possession before… before, apparently, we ‘stole’ it. Have you tried questioning _her_ about it?”                
“We did, but apart from your location, she refused to tell us anything.” May answered.

Nikki was in the base, locked in a containment room. She was sitting on the bed, cross-legged, arms resting on her knees, meditating. She did that, from time to time, everyone knew that. And yet, this seemed like an awful time to do it. She seemed so calm, and like she didn’t even acknowledge what she had done. And meanwhile, the base was in chaos. Simmons was dying, with Fitz spending every moment by her side, holding her hand, and praying for her to wake up. May and Coulson were desperately trying to find out what the 084 was that caused all this, and how they could destroy it. Daisy was spending most moments in Nikki’s room, as she just couldn’t believe that the sweet little girl that had lived here for the past year had lied to them and deceived them like this. And then of course there was Leah. Distraught. Her heart broken over the betrayal of her best friend, she spent most of her time in the gym, punching all her anger into the boxing ball, until her hands were bleeding.

Fitz entered Nikki’s cell. Coulson had forbidden everyone to visit her, but he couldn’t help it. He just had to know.                
“What is this game you’re playing?”               
But Nikki didn’t respond. Nor did she in any way acknowledge that he had entered the room. She just continued to meditate, clearly trying to concentrate on something.       
Fitz tried again. “Jemma is dying! Does that mean nothing to you? You killed her, and yet, here you are, acting like this is all just a game to you!”        
This time Nikki did react. She opened her eyes, and though it went by very fast, Fitz could just see a white glow leaving her eyes. She looked down at the ground.             
“Of course I care. But in case you haven’t noticed, I’m locked up in here, there’s not much I can do.” She had said it with a kind voice, but somehow, this only enraged him more. She had closed her eyes again and continued meditating.                
“You said that you’re practically immortal.”  
Nikki opened her eyes and stood up from the bed but didn’t walk closer to him. She looked at him, curious as to where this was going. He continued. “How does that work? If you get shot or anything, does it just heal immediately?”             
Nikki tilted her head slightly to the side, unsure of what to say.  
“Well, not immediately... I can always choose not to… But it also depends where I get shot. A headshot might knock me out for a while, a couple of weeks, months even. Shoot me somewhere else and, yes, I will heal, but it’s still going to suck.”               
“Good to know.”  
Fitz grabbed his gun from behind him and shot her 3 times in the stomach. Nikki gasped for air, and collapsed, lading on all fours, and coughing up blood.                
“Hurts, doesn’t it? That is what Jemma felt, you psychopath. And she won’t just magically heal, she is going to die! And for what? You won’t even tell us why!”          
Nikki lost all strength in her arms and legs and collapsed further. She laid on the floor gasping for air and choking on her own blood. Blood continued to spill out, and formed a big red pool onto the floor. She looked up at Fitz but couldn’t say anything.      
“Why? Why did you turn on us? What do you want?” Fitz asked with tears in his eyes. “Who are you?”                 
“Please…” Nikki said with great difficulty. “It wasn’t meant to be this way. You were all going to be fine. You have to believe me.”    
Fitz pointed the gun at her again. “Why would I believe anything you say? And why would I care about how you’re feeling? You clearly didn’t care about that when you shot her!”        
But before he could fire the gun again, Coulson had entered the room.                 
“Agent Fitz, stand down!”  
For a moment, it looked like he was going to protest, but then he handed the gun to Coulson and left the room, saying, “Fine, I’m done here anyway.” Coulson glanced at Nikki. “Is it true what you said? About you healing?” Nikki gave a weak nod. “I’ll leave you to it then.” And he left her on the floor as he walked out the room.


	21. A miracle

Two days later, she had completely healed. Coulson had come over a couple of times to ask her some questions, but she hadn’t said a single word. Instead, she had resumed her earlier activity, and meditated all day long. She didn’t eat. She didn’t sleep. She just sat there with her eyes closed, not responding to any external stimuli. It looked like she was growing weaker though, and anyone could see that she was exhausted. However, she continued, clearly still focusing on something. Yet no one knew what that was.

In the meantime, Simmons’ situation was slowly starting to look better. No one could explain it, but her wounds were healing at a fast rate. She still hadn’t woken up, but it was clear that she was going to make a full recovery.

And then, just a couple of days after everything that had happened, she finally woke up. She was still weak, but her wounds had healed, and now she just needed to rest. No one understood what had happened. An injury like that would take ages to recover from, if at all. But she soon grew tired of the hospital bed and asked if she could return to her room to get some peace and quiet.

Jemma Simmons was sitting alone in her room, on her bed, trying to grasp the things that had happened to her. It was hard to accept, especially since the bullet wounds had been healed, without even leaving as much as a scar. It made no clinical sense. But she knew that this had really happened. And the feeling kept haunting her. The feeling of how she could slowly feel her life slip away after she’d been shot. She almost died back there… Suddenly Fitz was standing in the doorway. He wanted to enter, but he hesitated. “Jemma?” She didn’t reply, but Fitz knew that he could come in. He sat down next to her. “How are you feeling?”                
“I’m fine, I think. Just very tired.”     
Fitz wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her closer.  
"I was so scared... I thought I was going to lose you... You were just sitting there, bleeding out, and there was nothing I could do. I'm so, so sorry, Jemma"  
Tears started rolling down his face. Simmons looked up at him, and moved her hand to his face, wiping away a tear. But she couldn't keep her own from coming as well.  
"It's not you fault." She said quietly. "You saved me, Fitz..."  
She closed her eyes, and closed the gap between them, kissing him deeply. Fitz pushed her down onto the bed, and ran his hand over her body, holding her in a warm embrace. The kiss broke, and she put her head on his shoulder, as he wrapped his arms around her protectively. For the first time in days, she felt completely safe, and just moments later, she was peacefully sleeping in his arms. Fitz sweetly kissed her forehead, and stroke her hair, before eventually, he too fell asleep.

In the days after, Simmons was gradually getting better, yet no one could find any explanation for her remarkable recovery. Nikki had finally stopped meditating, but was still not answering any questions, and now just spent most of the days sleeping. “I don’t understand.” Simmons said one day, as she was looking at the cameras from Nikki’s cell. “You’d think that in no way she regrets what she’s done. How can she sleep at night?”    
“How can she sleep during the day?” Fitz asked, standing beside her.  
 She looked up at him.        
“They told me you almost killed her. That you shot her three times in the stomach.”         
“She told me herself, she can’t die. I just wanted her to feel what you felt.”          
“Fitz. I’m fine now. Don’t stoop to her level. As long as she stays locked up in there, she can’t hurt us anymore.”

But she didn’t stay locked up. No one knew when it had happened. One morning, she was just gone. There were no signs of a breakout. She had just vanished from the room. The last thing that the camera’s showed was her sending fire to them, disabling them. There had also been no reports of anyone who saw her leave the base, or walk around the base, and she wasn’t seen on any other camera’s. Moreover, the staff was gone.      
“All agents. Drop whatever it is you’re doing. I want everyone to be on high alert. It is of top priority that we find her.” Coulson said to the team.          
Fitz looked at Simmons and put his arm around her protectively.  
“Do you think she’ll come back to finish the job?” He asked carefully.  
But May shook her head.    
“After we captured her, she quickly told us where to find you. She looked like she didn’t care, but I don’t think she meant for anyone to die.”                
“But she does have the staff. Who knows what she’s planning to do with that?” Simmons said worriedly.                
Coulson looked back at them.           
“That’s your job then. Figure it out.”             


	22. An old enemy returns

But whatever they did, they couldn’t find her. It was like she had vanished from the surface of the earth. They spent ages looking for her but had to stop when an old enemy returned.      
“Hello Coulson.”    
Wards voice spoke through the speakers, as his face was shown on the screen in Coulson’s office.   
“Ward?”   
“Is that all you’ve got to say to me, Coulson?”               
“How can this be? What do you want?”          
“Well, it looks like I found your secret base, so, what I want is very simple. Open the doors, let me in, and I’ll make this quick. I do recommend you not to fight back, we’ve got you surrounded, and I’ve got plenty of agents that are really up for a fight. Surrender your inhumans, and all alien weapons to us, and maybe we might just let you live.”                 
“Maybe you might just?” Leah said angrily.   
“And who might you be?”   
“We haven’t met, but I’ve heard plenty about you, you backstabbing traitor!”      
Ward let out a little laugh.   
“She’s feisty. But Coulson, is this really all you got these days? You are so desperate that you’re recruiting children?”              
“Agent Pandargin is a more valuable member to the team than you ever where, Ward.”    
“Well, it’s not like that’s very hard, now, is it?”             
He demonstratively loaded his gun on before the camera. Leah took a step forward.          
“Now, before we do all this, why don’t you slip into something more comfortable… like a coma.”    
“You think you’re clever, don’t you?”              
“No, just better than you.”                 
“You’re going to sass me to death?”                
Ward gave another laugh.                  
“If this is your ‘army’ Coulson, you really are in trouble. I’ll see you in a minute.”                 
The screen went black, and the team was left bewildered behind.  
“He’s back…” Fitz said quietly, as he lowered himself into a chair, putting his hands in his hair. He and Simmons had had the most unpleasant experiences with Ward, and Fitz was terrified.       
“What do we do, Coulson?” May asked.         
“Suit up, defend the base. We can’t let him get away with this.”  
And they left the room, preparing for the fight.          

But it was hopeless. They were taken completely by surprise. The doors were breached, and the entire Hydra army flooded into the base. Many agents fought the best they could, but they were severely outnumbered. The team was driven back to the hangar, where they made their last stand. Coulson had given the order to take as many wounded agents as possible to the quinjets and get them to safety. The roof was open, and many of the ships had already left, though some of them were shot down again. The hangar was filled with the wreckages of these ships, still burning slightly.

The team was driven into a corner. They were still holding strong, but Hydra was everywhere, killing anyone they saw. May got shot in her shoulder and fell to the ground, exhausted.              
“We need to retreat. It’s over.” Coulson decided.         
“No, we can’t let him get away with this. We have to keep going.” May said, but everyone was too weak to go on. Leah used her powers to blind the soldiers that had fired at them, before turning herself and the team invisible, so that they could escape. That had bought them some time, but there were still too many Hydra agents, and too few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.     
After a while, she had to let go, exhausted, and Leah slid down against the wall. The had lost all her fire and spirit and couldn’t go on.  
“I’m scared.” She said quietly. “We’re going to die.”     
“No, we can’t lose hope, we might still get out of here.” Daisy said comforting, but she too knew it was hopeless.                
“I can’t fight without Nikki… we were a team, I always relied on her, I can’t do this alone.”               
“Come on, Leah, just hang in there. Nikki left us, but you’re still here. That makes you better than her. You’ve fought brilliantly, don’t give up now, okay?”     
She pulled her into a hug. 

“Come on! We have to go!” Fitz screamed, as he pulled Simmons back to her feet. Daisy did the same with Leah.               
“We’re going to beat them, okay?”

But before they knew it, Ward was walking up to them, escorted by a group of heavily armed soldiers. They were cornered and had nowhere to go.                 
“It’s over Coulson.”              



	23. The army of the firepeople

The fight was lost. Hydra was just too powerful. Everyone was exhausted, and severely wounded. They could not go on. Ward walked forwards and pointed his gun at them. “Sorry that it had to end this way. Though we all knew that in the end, one of us had to lose. Is there anything else you’d like to say?” Coulson looked at him, his eyes filled with hate, but he kept silent, refusing to play his game. Even Leah lost all her sass, and just closed her eyes, crying, and preparing for the bullet. “Alright then, have it your way.” Ward said. “Kill them.” He then said to his soldiers. But before they could fire, another fire appeared between the Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, circling around and forming some sort of portal. Through it, walked the last person they had ever expected to see again: Nikki. But she looked different. Her hair was wavy, and two braids that originated from the sides of her head, met in the middle, on top of her other hair. She was wearing armour of some kind, gleaming red and orange, like a burning fire, and with fiery red phoenix on it. It had a little chainmail skirt on the bottom, with some orange feathers rather than fabric, and black boots. Diagonally across her body, a couple of knives were strapped to a belt, the blades black, and the hilts beautifully decorated. To her side, the staff was strapped to another belt, the symbols glowing red. “Nicole…?” Coulson asked, confused. But she ignored him and addressed Ward directly.   
“You are really starting to annoy me.” She said. “But I am going to give you one more chance to take your things and leave. I advise you to take it.”         
Ward let out a little laugh, but he was clearly surprised, and unsure of what to do. So were the soldiers, who now slowly lowered their weapons.         
“Who are you then? Another child that Coulson recruited? Are you really their last line of defence?” Ward asked mockingly. “What are you going to do?”              
He pointed his gun at her. But Nikki didn’t look scared or angry, just annoyed.      
“Ward, you absolute piece of shit. You are the biggest turd dump to ever be put in a toilet boil that I’ve ever had the displeasure of both seeing and smelling, and I just want to flush you! I just want to flush you, and your tentacle-like turdiness, down the bowl, into the sewer system, where you’re flushed into a water treatment plant, and then converted into clean water that I can drink and show my dominance over!”                 
Ward laughed. “Woah, I think that’s the most creative insult I’ve ever heard. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to do better than just insult me. Especially since you’re all alone.”             
A small smile formed on her face.     
“Whatever made you think that I’m alone?”                  
Suddenly, a couple of more portals opened, and out came multiple other woman, all dressed in a similar kind of armour that Nikki was wearing, and holding swords, axes, bows, and other weapons. And yet they all looked different. Some looked human, other Kree or Asgardian, and there were also a couple of alien species that the team did not recognise. Up in the sky, more portals opened, and from them, a flock of phoenixes flew down, their beautiful feathers practically glowing. They landed next to Nikki, between the Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, the largest landing right next to her. They screeched, and a few of the soldiers put down their guns and got to their knees, panicked. Nikki spoke up again, calmly, but in a strange language no one could understand. As she gestured to Ward, who was now slowly stepping back. _“Di’jun kai, hij kili!”_ She then gestured to the S.H.I.E.L.D. team and said _“Ak’ki! Ai Kirakai!”_ They looked on in shock. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Daisy stammered, but Nikki had already turned back around and grabbed the staff. The symbols started to grow brighter, before two blades slid out from the ends. They were pitch-black, but beautifully decorated. Then she, and all other woman jumped forwards. The Hydra soldiers kept fighting, shooting around wildly at the new opponents, but it was useless. In the middle of it all, Nikki was jumping around, crossing of enemy after enemy. The entire sword was longer than she was, but she wielded it around with ease. Occasionally, she would grab the hilt in the middle, and pull it apart, leaving herself with two longswords in both hands. Everywhere was fire, as the army casually breathed it around.

The entire battle didn’t take all that long. In a couple of minutes, the last Hydra soldiers were either dead, or defeated. The warriors surrounded the last surrendered soldiers, waiting for further instructions, as Ward was held separately, and was being tied down. Nikki walked over to the S.H.I.E.L.D. team, her sword retreated into the staff again. “Are you all right?” She offered her hand, but no one took it. “We’re fine.” Agent May said quietly. “But Daisy isn’t.” She was lying motionless on the floor, bleeding heavily, as she had been shot multiple times in the crossfire. Simmons moved over to her, and checked her pulse, before she let out a gasp and covered her face with her hands. “She’s gone…” She cried. She held her hand, crying. Nikki walked up to them and knelt beside her. She gently put her hand on Daisy’s injuries, examining her. “Get away from her.” Simmons said to Nikki, but she didn’t let go of Daisy’s hand, and clearly did not have the strength to get up. With her free hand, Nikki gently disconnected Simmons’ hand from Daisy’s before pushing her back slightly. “You might wanna step back a bit for this.” She said. But before Simmons could protest, Nikki had formed a flame in her hand, burning brighter and hotter than anything they had seen her conjure before. The heat was too much for anyone to bear, so they couldn’t get any closer to Nikki to stop her.   
“NOOOOOO!”  
“Don’t you dare. Get away from her!”             
“Please, don’t!”     
But Nikki didn’t direct the fire at Daisy. Instead, she enclosed it with her other hand catching the fire between them. It got brighter, until it wasn’t even fire anymore, but just a glowing white light. She then put one hand on Daisy’s forehead, and the other on her chest, before she closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and exhaled softly. She didn’t exhale air though, she exhaled fire. Fire that latched itself onto Daisy, and spiralled around her, completely engulfing her in flames. No one could see what was happening, as the light was too bright to look at, and their screaming and pleading was drowned out by the roaring flames. But then the fire suddenly changed direction, as it found its way to Daisy’s mouth, and went inside. Then, the light was gone, and the room was quiet, as Daisy lied on the ground, gasping for air, and all her wounds were gone. Nikki opened her eyes again, and gently pulled her upright, as she started coughing heavily. She then lost all her strength again, and Nikki gently returned her to the ground. She was passed out, but clearly breathing. Alive.


	24. The queen

“Don’t worry, she’s gonna be just fine.” Nikki said kindly, as she stood up again. But no one responded. They just looked up at her, shocked. “Sorry it took so long, but you must understand that I first wanted to make sure that you couldn’t handle it on your own, before bringing in the big guns.”         
“What are you?” Fitz asked.              
But Nikki brushed him off by saying. “Later. Not here, not now. Come on, follow me. And don’t worry, they’ll take care of Daisy.” She gestured to some of the warriors, and quickly spoke a few words in another language before they walked up to them. They gave a small bow, which Nikki returned with a short nod of her head, before she turned around and walked away. The team hesitantly followed. She stopped just in front of where the largest bird was now standing, looking out over the team. It towered out over them, being at least twice as tall as any human. “Get. Down.” Nikki hissed to them. Leah looked at her in surprise. “Excuse me?” Nikki looked her in the eyes, and it was clear that she was dead serious. “Kneel. That’s the queen.” Simmons shot a quick look at the bird, before she, and the team did as they were told. Nikki however, didn’t kneel. The bird caught fire, and when the fire had disappeared, a woman was standing in its place. She was beautiful, with long flowing hair, and wearing a long fiery red, feathered dress. On her head was a beautiful crown. Nikki walked over to the queen, before bowing her head down respectfully. She then threw all her grace away, and ran over to the woman, wrapping her arms around her, and pulling her into a hug. The queen returned the hug, though a little more gracefully, before softly kissing the top of her head. “Melorae…” She said softly. But that was all they said. Nikki took a step back, as they both held up their left arm, and took each other’s hand. A white glow came from it, as their eyes lit up as well. They stood like that for a while, in silence, before the light faded away, and they let go. The queen now turned towards the team, that was still kneeling, unsure of what to do.                
“You may rise.” She then said. “Melorae tells me that she owes you many things, and a friend of hers, is a friend of mine” She gave a kind and gentle smile.     
The team got up, surprised. She spoke English? And when did Nikki tell her that?               
“Apparently, she has made a couple of mistakes. You must forgive her for that. My daughter is still young, and impulsive, and has a lot to learn.” Nikki lowered her head, as she hid her face in her hand, as she slowly turned red. But the queen continued.                
“However, apart from that, you have taken loving care of her, and for that, I am grateful, and clearly in your debt. Who among you is the leader?”    
No one moved, until Nikki looked Coulson in the eyes, and nodded her head to the side quickly. He stepped forwards and stopped right in front of the queen and the princess.         
“If you would please present me with your left hand.” She held out her own as well. He shot a quick look at Nikki, who nodded, almost imperceptibly. The same happened as before, a white glow coming from their hands, and their eyes lighting up. This time, it was a lot quicker, and the connection was broken before anyone could have guessed what was happening.          
The queen spoke again. “If you or your people are ever in need of aid, my army will be at your disposal.” She gestured at Ward, who was now completely tied up, with nowhere to go. “Please accept this gift as well. Now, if you would excuse me, and leave me to talk with my daughter.” Coulson gave a small bow and walked back. Nikki and her mother were facing each other again. Nikki let out a small cry, as a tear rolled down her face.      
“I am going to miss you, mother.” She said softly, before her mother hugged her again. “I wish I could come with you.”  
“I know, Melorae, but you have to wait just a while longer. I will be awaiting your return.” She kissed her forehead and put her hands on her shoulders. “Stay strong, my daughter. I am so proud of you.” Nikki took a step back, as the queen transformed back into a bird, and flew up. All other warriors did the same and followed her. She spewed fire from her beak, which formed another portal. And then, they were all gone.

Nikki’s armour caught fire, changing her clothes. After that, she was just standing there, like the Nikki that they knew before. Normal, human clothes, her hair loose, and a little messy, and a young, playful look on her face.                
“Ommygosh!! My mom made you her Kirakai! Do you have any idea what an honour that is?” she excitedly screamed. Coulson looked surprised. “She did what? What the hell just happened? Who were those people?” Nikki opened her mouth, as though she was going to explain, but she hesitated, and closed it again. She looked at Ward. “Not here, not now. First things first, what do you want to do with him?”


	25. Melorae

A while later, Ward was locked up, Daisy had recovered mostly, though she was still weak, and the team was sitting in Coulson’s office. They were all standing around the table, with Nikki on her own on the other end. Nikki climbed on top of the table, and sat down cross-legged, like she had always done before, and nothing had changed. Of course, everything had changed.                
“Explain.” Coulson said shortly.        
Nikki put her hand in her hair, also in the same cute, unique way that she had always done.            
“Where to start…” She said quietly. Do you want the short or the long version?”                
“Why don’t you just start with your name?”                 
“Again. Short or long version?”         
Daisy looked confused. “Wait, your freaking name has a short and long version?”              
“I’m a royal, it’s all formalities.”        
She fell silent for a while, before saying “My real, and full name is Lady Melorae I’aiki, princess of Asgard, Flame of the New World and heir to the throne of Aarkaa’aaria, daughter to her majesty Niuwa I’aiki of Aarkaa’aaria, Fire of Unity, Keeper of the Embers of Burning Mount Kir’aii, and Protector of the Fire Nation. But you can just call me Melorae. Or Nikki, whichever you prefer.”           
Daisy looked dumbstruck. “Woah, that is a mouthful.”              
Everyone fell silent, still intensely staring at the alien princess in their midst. Melorae sighed and continued.             
“Fine. I’ll tell you my story, but I have a couple of conditions.”  
“You have no right to set conditions after what you did.”          
“But I will. And if you don’t like it, I will just create a portal and leave this place. You will never find me, and you will never know. Moreover, my mother probably won’t come to rescue you again the next time you’re in trouble. Do you have any idea how lucky you are that I kept an eye on you all this time? And how much I risked with this little rescue mission? Not to mention that I saved Daisy’s life, by literally giving her some of my own! You know, that also took quite a toll on me, I feel like I’ll now live a couple of hundred years shorter!” She fell silent for a moment. “Then again, if you live for tens of thousands of years, I suppose I can miss ‘em…” She took a deep breath, and a moment of silence to calm down.                 
“Condition one: You will not speak about this to anyone. There is a reason I kept this a secret, and that reason goes a lot further than just a couple of people getting hurt. You have no idea what you’re messing with. If any of you ever tells anyone about this, you can be sure that I will know of it. From there you can do whatever you want, but I will find you, and I will kill you. Along with anyone you may or may not have told. Am I making myself very clear?”             
A few people nodded, until Simmons suddenly spoke up.          
“No. You may have glossed over it just now, but you shot me!” She took a moment of silence before adding “Twice!” She took a step forward. “You tortured me and Fitz to get that weapon, how do you expect us to trust you? Especially if you’re going to threaten to kill us again!”      
Melorae put both hands in her hair and lowered her head to think. “I am truly sorry about that. Aarkaa’aarians are war-creatures by nature. I guess I might have been carried away a little when Amari got into play… If it helps, the sword’s name is Amari’Il Kanqua’ta. That means Protector of Innocents. It’s not evil.”                
“Yeah, but you are!” Fitz said angrily, stepping forwards too.    
Melorae pushed herself back over the table, so that she slid out of his reach before Coulson could hold him back.               
“Agent Fitz. Stand down. We don’t have all the facts yet, and this might be our only chance to get them. Melorae has thus far made no move to hurt us. Leave her be. For now.”               
Melorae looked down at the table, but then Leah spoke up.     
“No. I agree with Fitz. We can’t trust her. She lied to us this entire time. Nikki, I loved you. How could you do this to us? Did you ever even care for us? For me?”              
Melorae didn’t dare to look her in the eye, but just kept staring at the table.       
“Of course I care, why d’you think I came back? Leah, you really were my best friend, and you mean the world to me. And I hope that we can be that again, provided that I didn’t completely ruin that… I may have lied to you about who I really am, but during my time here, everything I told you was true. You mean the world to me Leah, you all do.”    
This seemed to silence everyone. For now. So she continued.   
“Second condition. Please don’t interrupt me. It’s a long and complicated story, and not something I like talking about. So please… just let me talk, and don’t press me into telling you more then I’m comfortable with… And listen closely, because I’m not going to repeat myself.” And then she started.

“First, I suppose I should tell you some things about Aarkaa’aaria. It’s a very special planet, with very special people, see?” She stopped for a moment and rolled her eyes. “Maybe not the best phrasing…” But she just shook her head and continued. “Anyway, there are some things I should clarify for any of this to make sense to you. First, we may look like phoenixes, but we’re not really. The last ones died generations ago, we’re just their descendants. Second, we can get tens of thousands of years old, so ‘generations’ is a broad term. And we are among the most ancient species in the universe. Because of this, our biology is very different than yours… It would take a while to explain all differences, but the most important thing right now, is that we’re exclusively female.”

She took a moment of silence. She was speaking very slowly and clearly, to make sure that everyone understood, and had time to process what she was saying. Then she continued.

“That is just the way things are, but it does create a problem… To… reproduce, we need to ‘mate’ with other species, and that’s where the different races of Aarkaa’aarians come from. Myself, I am Asgard-born, meaning that I’m Aarkaa’aarian with an Asgardian father. Are you with me so far?”

Everyone nodded, but they were confused as to where this was going, and how this mattered to the story.

“Now, that alone wouldn’t be such a problem, since it created a lot of genetic diversity. But after a couple of generations, it did cause the phoenix-bloodlines to dilute. Aarkaa’aaria is a volcanic planet. One of the most desolate and dangerous places in the known universe. These days, only a full-grown Aarkaa’aarian can stand on its surface and live to tell the tale. Note that I said ‘full-grown’, meaning that Aarkaa’aarian children also can’t survive there. That’s why they always grow up with their father, on their father’s planet, until they come of age and move back to Aarkaa’aaria to live out the rest of their lives.”

She took another moment of silence to make sure that everyone was still following her. Many of them looked like they had so much to ask her, but they kept quiet, like they had promised.

“Now, that was the Aarkaa’aarian biology you needed to know, now let me tell you something about Aarkaa’aarian history and politics. Always fun right?” She said while rolling her eyes. “Tens of thousands of years ago, my grandmother was still on the throne of Aarkaa’aaria. Until then, Aarkaa’aarians had been creatures of war, always looking to conquer other civilisations. My grandmother loved it. And since we are among the most powerful races out there, it was easy, as the army just obliterated everything in its path… And that was how it had been going for hundreds of thousands of years… Until one day, my grandmother went too far…”

_Thousands of years ago…_   
_“Frièro! The Kree are growing stronger every day! Our numbers are falling!”_   
_A royal servant had entered the throne room, to seek council with the queen. The Frièro, or Fire, carried the fire of the planet within her, and wielded an enormous amount of power. And that power had been with the I’aiki bloodline for a long time…_

_A very long time ago, the first I’aiki to ascend the throne had sworn to conquer the universe. The mighty people of Aarkaa’aaria were supposed to dominate all other lifeforms, for that was their right, and duty. And the current Frièro upheld that promise, being at war with not only the Kree, but 13 other planets as well…_

_The Frièro looked down upon the servant._   
_“How do you mean, ‘Our numbers are falling’? Surely those brute Kree couldn’t defeat Us, the Great and Powerful Nation of Fire?”_   
_The servant approached and knelt before her._   
_“Frièro, they… they… they have united! Joined their armies! We are severely outnumbered, we need to regroup!”_   
_“Nonsense! They will learn their place. We shall not bow down to those inferior species! Now leave me. I need to prepare for battle.”_   
_The servant nodded, got up, and left the room. The Frièro turned around to leave as well, until another young woman approached, who had apparently overheard the conversation._   
_“Are you sure that is the right move?”_   
_The Frièro looked down upon her, clearly disturbed by the question._   
_“Are you saying we should just give up? We will not yield! They cannot defeat us! No one will ever defeat us! You disappoint me, Niuwa.”_   
_But the princess stood her ground._   
_“Yes, mother, you’re right. No ONE could every defeat us. But they are not fighting separately anymore. They have united against us! Please… let the army return to Aarkaa’aaria, where it’s safe. Stop this madness. Stop this unnecessary bloodshed. I’m sure they will accept our offer for peace if-”_   
_“Enough! I can’t believe that you will wield the Fire once I’m gone. You are clearly not worthy to pursue our ultimate meaning in this universe. I am the Fire of conquest. What kind of Fire will you become? The Fire of cowardice? You might be the Frièri, but you’ll never be a Frièro! Now come along, we have a battle to win.”_   
_She left the room, and Niuwa hesitantly followed._


	26. The Last Great Intergalactical War

“It’s funny…” Melorae continued. Our army had always been small, but that didn’t matter much, as we had among the fiercest warriors known to mankind. Yet, strangely enough,” She said sarcastically “from a certain point it doesn’t matter how strong your people are, because if you’re outnumbered a thousand to one, you’re still gonna lose.” She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Anyway, we would all have died, if it wasn’t for the fact that at the last moment, my mother stepped in…”  

_The battle was lost. Frièri Niuwa looked around and saw bloodshed everywhere. Aarkaa’aarians dying in a useless war. No… this wasn’t war… this was a massacre. She held her bow in her hand and shot an arrow at someone who was closing in on her. He fell to the ground, dead. Niuwa felt her heart drop and couldn’t help but feel regret. She didn’t even know from what planet he was at this point, as they were just fighting one massive army now._

_She looked around and saw her mother. A giant flaming phoenix, who was flying over, and unleashing a rain of fire on the opposing troops. They were screams, then silence, then more screams, as they were all burned alive. Everywhere was blood. But it didn’t make any difference. For every soldier killed, there were at least a thousand still alive. And the Aarkaa’aarian warriors were being slaughtered by the hundreds. One of the people who her mother had just burned, was still alive, and flailing around blindly, clearly in a lot of pain. She looked up at Niuwa and said something that she would never forget._   
_“The blood of my people is on your hands.”_   
_Niuwa gasped, and shot an arrow through her head, killing her, and ending her suffering, before turning back to the battle, and walking over the sea of corpses of her people._

_And then, the worst thing that could have happened, happened. Niuwa could see the leader of the Girako (A humanoid species, with bright purple skin, and four arms), arming a giant ballista, tipped with a deadly poison that could kill an Aarkaa’aarian, without giving it a chance for rebirth. Niuwa tried to warn her mother, but her voice was drowned out by the noise of the raging battle around them. She transformed into a phoenix, and flew up to her, to try and get her mother out of the way, but she was too late. The arrow was fired, and the giant bird fell down to the ground, before changing back into a humanoid form._

_Niuwa rushed down after her, before transforming back too, and bending over her mother, crying._   
_“Mother!”_   
_Her mother grabbed her wrist firmly and looked her in the eye one more time. With a weak voice she said:_   
_“You are the Frièro now. Fulfil your purpose and do our ancestors proud. The universe will be ours!”_   
_Niuwa could feel the flame inside her ignite into a raging fire, the power flowing through her veins, and she knew that her mother was dead._

_She turned around to see the leader of the Girako, who had shot the arrow, approaching her._   
_“Time for you to die, little Flame.” He said with a bloodthirsty look in his eyes._   
_Niuwa got up and formed a flame in her hand. It was now burning brighter and hotter than anything she’d been able to conjure before. She took a deep breath and fuelled the fire with the hate she felt for the man who had killed her mother. With a strong, and determined voice, she spoke._   
_“I am not the Frièri anymore. I now carry the fire of Aarkaa’aaria. I am Lady Niuwa I’aiki of Aarkaa’aaria, Fire of the New World, Keeper of the Embers of Burning Mount Kir’aii, and Protector of the Fire Nation. I am the queen, and you will suffer for what you did to my mother!”_   
_She held up the fire, knowing that it would easily be able to kill this man. But he didn’t flinch and pointed his sword at her._   
_“I have to disappoint you, but your mother tried that already. And look where it got her. Tell me, your majesty: Are you ready to die, like your bitch mother?”_   
_Niuwa was still holding on to the flame, but she hesitated, the man’s words cutting into her like a knife. She looked down at her mother, and made a decision that would change the universe forever…_   
_She extinguished the flame, and slowly got to her knees. The man was still holding the sword to her neck, ready to decapitate her, but she didn’t resist._   
_“Please… accept my surrender. One more life will barely matter. But spare my people and allow them to return home… that will be my first and final request as Frièro.”_   
_The man hesitated for a moment, until a grin formed onto his face._   
_“That I would live to see an Aarkaa’aarian without a spine…” He laughed. “This really made my day. I haven’t enjoyed myself like this for a long time, and for that, I will agree to your terms.” He looked at his soldiers. “Take her away, lock her in the most horrible, and deepest dungeon that we have. Victory is ours!”_   
_And as Niuwa was taken away, even though she knew that her fate would be more horrible than she could imagine, she couldn’t help but give a little half-hearted smile. For she knew that The Great Intergalactical War was finally over…_


	27. The lost princess

Melorae fell silent, and the team looked at her, confused. Sure, this was an incredible story, but they couldn’t see why this all mattered. This was her mother’s story, not hers. But she saw the way they were looking at her and continued.

“You might be wondering now why this all matters, right? I’ll get there in a minute. Short version: my mother was captured and tortured for a long time, while Aarkaa’aaria was in anarchy. But my mother stayed strong, and eventually, she was brought in to see the leaders of all civilisations that had fought in the Last Great Intergalactical War, to discuss the terms of her surrender. My mother kept her promise, and vowed to stop the old, aggressive ways of our people. A new era would begin, of peace, and unity. That is how my mother became the Fire of Unity. And finally, after many, many years, she was allowed to return home, and claim the throne. Naturally, many of the Aarkaa’aarian people were outraged that we, ‘the powerful nation of Aarkaa’aaria’ just surrendered like that, and my mother broke the promise of our ancestors, and some of them still are. Several times, groups of rebels tried to overthrow the crown since then, but my mother stood her ground. Which, trust me, is a good thing, because prisoners of war who got brutally tortured every day, just for fun, were not uncommon.” She sighed. “However, just because we swore off our ambitions to conquer the universe, doesn’t mean that we scrapped the army. And to this day, we still have among the most powerful ones out there. Because of that, occasionally, the leader of another civilisation will seek audience with my mother to request military support when they’re at war. And _this_ is why all this matters. For me at least…”

She took another deep breath, put up a little, cute smile, and started the story as though it was a fairy tale.

“Once upon a time, King Odin of Asgard was at war with the Ice-giants, and they were losing. Desperate, he asked my mother for military support. I’ll save you the story of the negotiations and politics, and skip to the end, because they struck a deal. My mother would help them win the war, if King Odin would give her an heir. And, well, there’s not much else to say about what happened next. The Aarkaa’aarians swept in, defeated the Ice-giants, and shortly after, a baby girl was born on Asgard… Me. Yeah… that’s right. My birth was the result of a political arrangement… how romantic.” She rolled her eyes and continued. “For the next… 234 years, there’s not much to tell… I lived on Asgard, as a princess, running around with my brothers, Thor, and Loki. Everything was great. Until…”

_104 years ago…  
Melorae was standing in the Asgardian palace. She was just a small kid. In human years, she was about 12 years of age. She was wearing a beautiful dress, and a little tiara, and was happily playing with a ball in the great hall. She didn’t know of what was currently taking place in the throne room…_

_King Odin was pacing through the room, worrying. The princess was growing more powerful every day. He could see the power that she held, just in the palm of her hand. The power, inherited by her mother… Her mother: The Fire of Aarkaa’aaria. The ruler of the most powerful people in the universe. The ones that had almost destroyed the entire galaxy, and could obliterate planets in a matter of hours…_

_They were useful allies and helped them win the war with the Ice-giants, but king Odin was still troubled about the deal he made with the Frièro. Why did she insist that he would give her an heir? Odin thought about the Aarkaa’aarian princess. And now that girl was here. Not only powerful, but with a legitimate claim to the throne…_

_Was that it? The Frièro swore off their conquering nature, and stopped the wars, but what if she was just trying to take over in another way? By having her own heir claim the throne of Asgard? Asgard would fall. Asgard would be in the hands of those… those monsters._   
_But he was jerked out of his thoughts when someone suddenly entered the room. It was the general of the army._   
_“You had called for me, sir?”_   
_“Yes. See, the princess is a growing problem. I need this problem to ‘disappear’.”_   
_The general hesitated for a moment._   
_“And how would you expect me to do such a thing?”_   
_“I don’t know. I don’t care. Just get her out of the way. Send the army after her. I’ve tried to take her out myself, but someone keeps thwarting my plans. If the army is on my side, she will have nowhere to run.”_   
_Again, the general hesitated._   
_“Sir, you know that I would never question a direct order. If you believe the princess to be dangerous, I will do as I am told, but to send the entire army after her… She is a child. A princess. Your daughter... I don’t see how I will be able to convince them to follow this order.”_   
_“She is not my daughter. She is the daughter of that war-queen. And if they won’t see her for the monster she is, then we will show them. Rouse up the people. Commit a crime so big, that no one will be able to ignore it. Then I will hold her responsible. She will have nowhere to run, and the problem will soon solve itself.”_   
_“Don’t you think that this is a bit drastic?”_   
_“It is a necessary evil, to ensure the safety of Asgard. Now get it done!”_

Melorae let out a little sob, and covered her face with her hands, as she sat there for a while, crying. After a couple of minutes, she continued again, choking on her tears. The horror of what she had gone through was clearly visible on her face, and in her voice.

_A couple of days later…_   
_Asgard was in panic. Multiple families had been brutally slaughtered, and their homes burnt to ashes. Melorae was dragged forward and brought to her knees before the king._   
_“Princess Melorae I’aiki. You have been found guilty of the murder of two dozen people. What do you have to say for yourself?”_   
_She looked up at the king, tears in her eyes._   
_“No! I didn’t do it! I swear! I was here in the palace all day, you have to believe me!”_   
_“You are a disgrace. And clearly, no daughter of mine. How could you? I raised you with like my own, from the day you were born. But I should have never let you in my home, you are a monster.”_   
_“Please… It wasn’t me, I swear. I would never do something like that…”_   
_“Enough! Their houses were burned to cinders. Who else on this planet holds that kind of power? You left your mark all over it. And your constant denial only proves to me that you don’t even regret your actions. That you don’t regret murdering all those poor, innocent people. You are soulless. I, king Odin, hereby sentence you to death. Take her away! I want to have her executed before the end of today.”_   
_And before Melorae could protest, she was dragged away again, and dumped into a cell in the deepest dungeon._

The room fell silent. For as far as they knew, the king of Asgard had always been a kind and just ruler. This seemed way out of character for him. Then again, there’s only two things that could possibly get a man to do something like this. Love… and _fear_.

_A couple of hours later, Melorae heard footsteps approaching her cell. She was sitting in the corner, crying, and deathly afraid. She was scared and confused. She hadn’t done anything wrong, right?_   
_The footsteps got closer, and in the light of the torches that were mounted on the walls, she could see Thor and Loki._   
_“Thor? Loki?” Melorae exclaimed, surprised. But Loki shushed her._   
_“Quiet. They don’t know we’re here.”_   
_Thor opened the door and extended a hand._   
_“Come on, sis, let’s get out of here. We won’t stand idly by while this kind of injustice is done to you.”_   
_Melorae got up, but hesitated._   
_“You heard father… I’m a monster…” She let out a small cry._   
_Loki stepped forward, and grabbed her by her shoulders, squeezing them reassuringly._   
_“You are not a monster. We don’t believe that you could ever do anything like that. We know you. You are a sweet, and kind girl, and you would make an amazing Frièro one day. This is not how it ends for you. We’ve stopped all his other attempts to cross you off, we’re not going to stop now.”_   
_She took a deep breath, and nodded, before looking back at Thor._   
_“We managed to convince Heimdall of your innocence. He had agreed to open up the Bifrost for you, so that you can escape, but we need to go, now!”_   
_“Where will the Bifrost take me?”_   
_“A place called Midgard, though the inhabitants call it Earth. It hasn’t yet had much contact with alien life, so you have to be careful, and you can’t use your powers. But father won’t look for you there, nor will anyone else who might be able to recognise you. You will be able to live there in peace, until you are old enough to return to Aarkaa’aaria. Now let’s go, before they notice that you’re gone.”_

“Loki provided a distraction, while Thor managed to get me to the Bifrost. And that was the last time I saw them. Of course, the Asgardian army was still looking for me, until Heimdall convinced them that he couldn’t see me anymore, and was probably dead… That is why you need to keep this a secret, because if my father finds out that I’m alive, he’ll come for me. To find and kill me. And he’ll destroy earth in doing so…” Another moment of silence. “And Earth won’t be the only planet to burn. The only reason my mother didn’t kill everyone on Asgard is because I begged her not to. To just leave things the way they are, for now. But if Odin kills me…”

She didn’t continue after that. She wiped away her remaining tears and returned herself to a state of rest. Instead of looking down at the table, like she had been the entire time, she now looked directly at the team.

“So. That’s how I ended up here, 104 years ago. And I’ve been living here ever since. An exiled princess living on a strange planet under a false name, with a father who wants her dead, and another 82 years until she can return to her mother. That about sums it up. Now if you’ll please excuse me, I need some air.”


	28. Lifting the mask

There was a tap on the window. Melorae looked up. She was sitting on the bed in a containment module, and Coulson was standing by the window. “Good afternoon princess.”  
“Please don’t. Besides, I’m not really a princess anymore, so you’d at least have to call me Frièri, or flame. But you don’t have to. We’re friends, right? Just call me Nikki. Or at least Melorae.”          
“Friends? You kidnapped and tortured my agents! Agent Simmons almost died!”              
“Come on. I apologised for that. At length. And I saved all your lives, ánd I told you my entire story, which is NOT something to take lightly.”    
“Didn’t you hear me? Simmons almost died because of you! We are all very lucky that she miraculously survived. Of course we can’t trust you.”         
Melorae sat up a little straighter.     
“With all due respect… that wasn’t luck. Do you really think that I was just going to let her die?”     
Coulson fell silent, confused. “What do you mean?”    
Melorae sat back again, lying down on her bed, and continued to talk while staring at the ceiling. “It was never my intention to kill her, I just somehow had to convince Leopold that I would. Yes, what I did was wrong, and disgusting, and sadistic, and horrible… and I’m sorry, but… I had a plan. After I got Amari back, I would return there, use my powers to heal her, and then drop them off back here, unharmed. I’m not evil, or at least I don’t think I am. I am just very impulsive. And when you come from a race that’s bred for war, things can get out of hand sometimes…” She sat up again.               
Coulson looked dumbstruck. “Was that why you kept meditating all the time? To heal her?”           
Melorae nodded. “She’s like a sister to me. Like I said: I was never going to let her die.”    
But then she changed the topic by saying. “I suppose you came here for a reason. What do you want?” And Coulson knew that she wasn’t going to continue the subject. This might be his only chance to get some honesty out of her. “Just to ask you another couple of questions. You left the entire team in quite a shock, you know?” “Fine, ask away, but I won’t promise that I’ll answer everything.”

“Okay, first, you said that you’re 338 years old. How is that possible? You were raised by your human parents since you were a baby. And your sister confirmed that.” Melorae pulled up her shoulders. “How do you think? Reincarnation. I’m a phoenix remember? That’s a thing we do. What I told Leopold a while back may have stretched the truth a little. Yes, until a certain point I can heal any injury. But if the damage is too great, it won’t knock me out for a couple of months, like I told him. I would die, and then be reborn as a baby. There are of course a couple of ways to kill an Aarkaa’aarian without activating this process, and we can only do it three times anyway… And of course, I can always choose not to heal.”           
“But what happened then? How did you end up with the Dace family? Does this mean you died?”                  
Melorae nodded, before looking down at the ground and sitting there in silence for a while. “I have a longer history with S.H.I.E.L.D. than just since I met Jemma. That is how I immediately knew that I would be safe here, and I could trust you. I wasn’t an agent before, since no one wanted to recruit a 16-year-old teenager, but I knew a couple of agents. Have you ever heard of Angelica Parry?”              
Coulson looked at her, confused. “She once saved 17 agents from a burning helicarrier, after it was hit by a missile.”              
Melorae nodded. “My previous identity before this one. If I were to pass as an inhuman, I had to choose one power that I could use. As Nikki, that’s pyro kinetics. As Angelica, they were portals… Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to save everyone. And as I was trying to get the last people out, the helicarrier crashed on the ground… and I died…” She was silent for a while. “And then I was reborn. But that doesn’t change my real age. Before I died, I aged slower than any human, so I couldn’t stay in the same place for too long. But when I was reborn, my Aarkaa’aarian age stayed about the same, so my body had to, like, catch up, and I aged like a human. That’s how I was able to ‘grow up’ like this. Come to think of it, this is an excellent time to tell you all of this, because I now have nearly caught up my age, and from that point I will age a lot slower again, so you might start noticing that soon…”

Coulson thought about this for a while. “Since the fate of multiple planets is at stake here, I won’t put you on the index, but we do have to be able to trust you. So, could you tell me what other powers you possess?” Melorae sat down cross-legged and thought about this. “Well, the portal-thing, which is an I’aiki thing. Reserved for the descendants of our bloodline. The most powerful Aarkaa’aarian bloodlines all have like an extra special little trick. This is also why the I’aiki bloodline is the royal family, since my mother can make portals between planets, and can function as an ambassador. If it makes you feel more comfortable, think of my mother as the minister of foreign affairs, rather than the queen. The other heads of the main 5 bloodlines all have a unique power, and political power over a different thing: The army, my mother, portals. Food and supplies, telekinesis. Economics, the ability to sense where certain resources can be found. Wellbeing of the people, protective forcefields. And technological advances, premonition. Anyway, only the Fire can create portals between distant planets. Mine can just get me anywhere on this planet. Other powers I have… well, pyrokinesis, which makes sense, and the fact that I have an alternate, Aarkaa’aarian form.”           
“You can transform into a phoenix?”              
Melorae didn’t answer, but instead was suddenly ingulfed in flames. She disappeared, and a small firebird was now sitting on the bed, about the size of eagle. It sat there for a couple of seconds before it changed back into Nikki.     
“Of course, my alternate form isn’t as big as the ones you saw during that battle with Hydra, but I’m just a kid.”     
After that, she just continued naming things. “Well, I told you about the healing and rebirth thing. Super strength, though only in my alternate form, unfortunately… And even though most people dismiss it, since it’s not really all that useful in battle, my singing voice is actually also an Aarkaa’aarian trait. Add in the natural proficiency in most battle skills, and I think that’s about it… Oh, and you have the Kirakai’s of course.”

“What the hell is a Kirakai? You mentioned that your mother made me one, and I believe I heard you say it when all your little friends joined you. What does that mean?”            
Melorae stayed silent for a moment, carefully choosing her words. “You sure you want to know that? Because that’s a whole other can of worms, that maybe should not be opened...”              
“Just tell me.”       
Melorae sat up straight and started moving her hands around each other. As she did so, a light begun to shine, and before long, she was holding a glowing orb, that seemed more like a liquid than a solid. It was the strangest thing Coulson had ever seen, as though it had a life of its own.        
Melorae looked up at him. “This is my Aika. This is what for you would pass as a ‘soul’. Like I told you, Aarkaa’aarians are different from most life-forms in many ways. This is one of them. Our ‘soul’ is a separate entity. And we can use that to our advantage. For example, if I were to give this to you, you would literally be holding me in your hands. Every feeling, every memory, everything! Of course, that would be too much for anyone to handle, and would probably kill you, but what if I were to give you a smaller piece?”     
She moved her hands around again, and the orb got smaller, until she was holding a tiny light, about the size of a grain of sand.         
“It would create a mental link between two people. With such a small piece, unfortunately, it would only be one way though. If I gave you this, it would be too small for you to notice it, but I will be able to read your mind. Well, your base thoughts and most extreme feelings, it doesn’t go that far… If two people give each other a piece of their Aika, they could feel when the other person is in danger, and where they are. Moreover, with a simple touch, they can create a telepathically link over which they can quickly and efficiently communicate. You saw me do that with my mother. I basically just transferred the information of the English language to her, so that she could talk to you, and I gave her a quick update of the things that had happened since I met you.”               
“All that, in just the minute or so that you held her hand?”       
Melorae nodded. “And yes, we do have a verbal language, but it’s not that developed since it’s not used all that much. Words like ‘I’ ‘Me’ ‘Mine’ ‘Self’ ‘Property’ are all the same for example. Anyway, things like this are difficult to just ‘explain away’, but do you understand?” There was a moment of silence, before he slowly nodded.               
“So, your mother can read my mind now?”  
Melorae made the tiny light vanish and sat back again. “Yeah, sort of, but don’t worry about your privacy. Like I said, it doesn’t go that far. But if you’re ever in trouble, she would know how to find you. Just like how I did.”             
“Wait. I’m your Kirakai too?” Melorae nodded carelessly, like it was the most normal thing in the world.                 
“You all are, Leah, Leo, Jemma, Melinda, Daisy. Why do you think Amari lit up when you guys picked it up, but not the other agents that I don’t know? Amari may not contain a piece of my Aika, but it is linked to me. That way, only I can use it, and I can wield it with great precision, since it will always do exactly what I want it to. And you can use it too, if you learn how to, because it recognises my soul inside of you.”                 
Coulson didn’t know what to say.     
“How do you think that I knew about you having it in the first place? When Jemma touched it, I felt it. It sort of… reactivated it. Reactivated _me._ But I couldn’t find it, which is why….” She swallowed the rest of her sentence. “Yeah…”       
“And when exactly did you do this?”               
“Just one night, when you were all sleeping… I’m not proud of it, but I really do care for all of you, and this was just my way of looking out for you… Any more questions?”       
“Not for now”       
“Well I do. How long are you going to keep me locked up in here? I told you everything that was worth telling.”  
“Locked up? Yes, we might have locked the door, but can’t you just create one of those little portals of yours and escape?”             
Melorae gave a salty look. “That’s beside the point. Not that I have anywhere to go anyway…” She looked away and closed her eyes. “I really messed up, didn’t I? No one else is going to come and see me? Do they really hate me that much?”               
“We might not hate you, but for now, we also can’t trust you. I’m sorry Nicole.” He turned to walk away.                 
“You used my real name…” She said quietly, forming a smile on her face. She looked up at him. “Thanks.”                 
He left the room.


	29. Picking up the pieces

Melorae stayed locked up for the next couple of days. Most of the time she just sat in the corner, either singing softly or daydreaming. She hadn’t tried to escape, nor did it look like she was going to. Clearly, she was patiently waiting to be let back in, or to stay there as their prisoner. Occasionally, someone would come around to ask a couple of questions. And Melorae didn’t shy away from telling everything she knew. About her home planet, her family, or her own story. The problem was that no one seemed to fully trust her. And why would they? All they had to go on was her word, and she had been lying for a long time. For all they knew, she was still doing it.

Until one day, the answer came. The surprises hadn’t ended, and one day, Thor suddenly entered the base.       
“Thor?” Coulson had asked surprised. “What are you doing here? How did you even find this base?”                 
But he didn’t answer the questions. “I’m looking for my sister. She was supposed to be here. I need to talk to her.”           
The team hesitantly showed him to Melorae’s containment module but were still unsure as to believe that they were really siblings. Their doubts were taken away very quickly though.

Despite Coulson urging him to stay behind the glass, Thor had entered the room immediately. Melorae looked up to him. There was a moment of silence, as neither of them moved.     
“Thor?” Melorae spoke quietly.        
But he didn’t reply. Instead, he took out his hammer, and placed it somewhere between them. Melorae first looked at the hammer, and then at him, before she nodded. She walked over to it, and picked it up, before spinning it around in her hand, no effort.          
“It’s really you then?” Thor asked, clearly surprised.    
Melorae dropped the hammer carelessly, and she ran up to him, wrapping him in a big hug. Thor pulled her up with one arm, returning the hug, but shuffling through her hair with the other hand at the same time, much in a way that a brother would do a younger sibling. Melorae immediately let go, bringing her hands to her hair, and trying to repair the damage, as Thor looked on, laughing.                 
“Thor! Don’t do that! We talked about this!” She said, slightly annoyed, but it was clear that she was thrilled to see him.              
“Long time no see, sis.” He replied, as he pulled her back into a hug, a little sweeter this time, and kissed the top of her head. He then looked at her a lot more seriously.              
“Now, I’ve heard that you’ve been causing a lot of trouble. I want to help you, but you need to be honest with me. What happened?” Melorae was silent for a while, before she started rambling something in another language, probably Asgardian. Thor listened quietly, but his face showed his disappointment. After Melorae had finished speaking, he turned to look at Coulson.        
“Who was the one that got hurt?” He asked.                
Coulson gestured at Simmons, who was standing somewhere in the back, silent.                
“Please, forgive my sister for her actions.” He said. “I will make sure she will be justly punished for what she did, but I know that she has no evil intentions. If you’re unsure if you can trust her, trust me. I know Melorae, and I know that she can get rather impulsive at times, especially when the stakes are as high as they are. But she has a good heart. I will vouch for her.”            
Coulson was silent for a while, hesitant, but then he nodded. Thor continued.     
“Now. If you’ll excuse us. I’d like to have a word with my sister in private.”           
He looked back at Melorae. She nodded slowly and dropped her head sadly. She then turned around and lifted her hand to her mouth, as she exhaled. It was like she blew a kiss, as the fire passed over her hand, and then formed a circle in the middle of the room. She walked towards the portal, and stopped in front of it, waiting for her brother to join her. They stepped through the portal together, and then they were gone.


	30. Forgiveness

Daisy was in her room. She had barely left it for the past week. Every once in a while, someone had come in to check on her, but she needed time to process what had happened. For the second time, she had died, and was brought back by some alien medicine. She had no idea what possible side effects could be, but apart from that, it was just a very uneasy feeling to realise that she had died. All week she had felt slightly feverish, and tired. And she was hungry and thirsty all the time. She had wanted to go and visit Melorae to ask her about it, but she had felt too weak to do so, and was afraid of what she might hear. But now it was too late anyway, since Melorae had left with Thor a couple of days ago, and she hadn’t returned. She lifted her shirt slightly, to reveal the place where she had supposedly been shot. There wasn’t even a scar.

Suddenly, the alarm went off. Something was wrong. Even though she still felt slightly weak, she knew that she had to help, so she rushed out the room to check what was going on. When she arrived at Coulson’s office, the entire team was already there.     
“I saw the base is in lockdown. What is going on?” She asked.   
No one said anything, but they showed her. Wards cell was trashed, and he was nowhere to be seen.                 
“He did it again. We should have just killed him.” Agent May told her.  
“Where is he now?” she asked.         
“He’s taken a few agents hostage and is demanding that we let him to the Zephyr. We don’t know how long it will take before he starts killing them.” Coulson said.      
“Then what do we do?” Daisy asked him.        
“Either we give into his demands, or we accept the fact that we might lose a couple of agents in an attempt to take him out…”                
An eerie silence fell over the room.   
“There has to be something we can do…” She stammered.        
“Actually, there is.”              
Melorae’s voice had come from the doorway. Agent May immediately took out her gun and pointed it at her.          
“Give me one reason not to shoot you.” She demanded.            
Melorae remained calm and folded her arms. She started counting on her fingers.             
“I saved all of your lives, Thor vouches for me, I think I have proven myself to not be evil, oh, and, I can solve this little ‘conundrum’ of yours.”            
She looked slightly annoyed, but her expression changed when May slowly put down her gun. She was filled with determination.   
“What do you mean? What are you going to do?”        
“I’m going to fix this.”          
She walked over to Coulson.              
“Give into his demands.” She told him.           
He looked shocked, surprised, and not like he trusted her in any way.  
“Are you insane? If he leaves, we might never catch him again!”  
Melorae formed a little smirk on her face.      
“Exactly. You might not, but I can. I can fly, remember? Let him fly away, then I’ll take him out one on one in the Zephyr. No one gets hurt. Well, except for him of course…”           
The team looked at each other, hesitating. Many of them looked like they had a lot to say to her, but they couldn’t find the words.      
“Maybe she’s right…” Simmons suddenly said.             
Fitz looked at her in surprise, before pulling her towards him, and talking to her quietly, so that no one else could hear it.                 
“Are you insane? You remember what she did, right? Last time we trusted her, you nearly died! And now you’re siding with her?”  
But she brushed him off and addressed the entire group again.  
“I vote for her plan. She’s right. This way, only she has to risk her life. If you succeed, we will be rid of Ward, and maybe, just maybe, we might be able to trust you again. If you fail, at least we’ll be rid of you.”                 
Melorae looked down at the ground, showing that this comment really hurt, but then she looked up again, waiting for the final decision. Coulson made eye-contact with her and said. “We’ll leave you to it then.”                  
Melorae nodded and walked over to the window, opening it.   
“Tell Ward that he can take the Zephyr. As soon as he flies away, I’ll follow close behind.”

Minutes later, the deal was struck, and Ward flew away with the ship. Just before Melorae left, Leah walked over to her.              
“In case this goes wrong, I just wanted to say… It’s good to see you, Nick.”            
She pulled her into a hug.   
“Thank you.” Melorae said, smiling, but then she transformed into a phoenix, and flew out the window, following Ward. From there, the team just had to wait. About half an hour past before they could see the Zephyr on the horizon, the small bird carrying it back with significant effort. She slowly put it back in the hangar, before turning back and lying down on the top of the ship, panting. When the team arrived to see what had happened, she was the first to speak.   
“It is done…” She said, completely out of breath. “He won’t bother you again.”   
She got up and looked down on the team. Like she same kid that she had always been, she asked, “Please tell me that I repaid my debt. I’m tired... I’d love to sleep in my old bed. Please…”               
The team exchanged a few looks, before they all nodded, some smiling kindly.     
“Welcome home, Nicole.”


	31. Nicole

To be fair, all interaction between Nicole and the rest of the team over the next couple of days was… awkward… to say the least. Conversations would fall silent as soon as she entered a room, and she was left out of a lot of things. Most of the time, she stayed in her room, alone. She longed to be with her old friends again, but she felt like she wasn’t really wanted. In a way, this reminded her of her home situation growing up, but then again, this was her own fault. And she knew and accepted that.

But she wasn’t alone for long. Suddenly, there was a knock on her door.               
“Come in.” She said, confused.         
Her confusion grew even further when the person walking into the room was Simmons. She was the last person she had expected to see. Nikki took a deep breath, and looked away, clearly expecting that she was going to at least be yelled at. But Simmons didn’t.              
“Hey.” She said carefully.    
But Nikki just pulled up her knees, still not looking at her. Simmons was trying to find her words.  
“Can I ask you something?” She said after a while, before quickly adding. “Princess Melorae.”        
Nikki now spoke, but she still didn’t look at her.           
“Please, just call me Nikki. I’m no royalty on this planet. And after what I did to you, I have no right to demand that you to bow down to me. Besides, I was never that kind of princess, I never felt like one.”  
She turned her head towards Simmons, but still avoided her gaze by looking down at the ground.                 
“What is it?”          
Simmons looked at her awkwardly.                
“Well, it’s just that after everything I’ve heard now, I can’t help but feel fascinated by your race, and your DNA, so I was thinking…-”  
Nikki looked up, surprised.                
“Wait, you want a sample of my blood?”       
“Just for scientific purposes, I promise!”        
Nikki raised an eyebrow.     
“Well… I’m an Intergalactical princess of one of the fiercest warrior races in the universe, my blood is probably one of the most powerful things on this planet right now, and I’m definitely afraid of needles, soooo…”                
Simmons looked down, disappointed, but Nikki wasn’t done yet, and finished her sentence.           
“Sure! Why not? I mean, it’s the least I could do for you. That, and, telling you everything you want to know about Amari. I’m sure you have a lot of questions about that as well, after it took over your mind a little while back. I’m sort of in your debt after, you know…”      
“Nearly killing me?”            
Yeah… that…”       
Simmons smiled kindly.      
“Sure, it’s a weird, and difficult situation, but I haven’t forgotten that you saved my life 3 times now… 4 if you count you healing me after you shot me yourself. It took me a while, but in the end, I’ve decided that I’m the one in your debt, not the other way around.”  
“Thank you, Jemma.”          
Simmons moved over to her and gave her a hug.         
“But if you ever do that again, I’ll kill you.”    
“That’s fair.” Nikki, said a little giggle.    
There was a moment of silence.  
“You don’t have to lock yourself in your room anymore. There’s a lot of people who missed you. Follow me, it’s all going to be fine, trust me.”     
And she extended her hand.           

So, Nikki followed Simmons to the living room, where the entire team was sitting. There was an awkward silence for a while, until some people moved over a bit, making more room on the couch. Nikki hesitantly sat down between Daisy and Fitz. She was afraid to look anyone in the eye, until Daisy put her hand on her shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly.         
“It’s nice to have you back Nikki…”  
She pulled her into a hug.  After that, the rest of the team took turns to do the same, and before long, the tension was broken. Everything seemed to have mostly turned back to normal, and everyone was happily chatting about everything they had been through together. It seemed like most people had now accepted Nikki’s new identity as Melorae, and they kept asking her for details about her race and her home planet, and to show off her powers.             
It was a lovely afternoon, except for the fact that one person was missing. Leah.

That evening, Nikki finally had the courage to face her. She walked over to her room and knocked the door. For a moment, she hoped that Leah would be somewhere else, and she could return to her own room, but then, the door slowly opened. Leah opened the door, and walked back to the desk, without saying anything, or even looking Nikki in the eye.         
“Hello Leah…” Nikki begun carefully. “How’ve you been?”         
Leah picked something up from the desk and turned around. It was slightly dark in the room, so Nikki couldn’t immediately see what it was, but then she recognised it as a small ‘welcome back!’ card.  
“It’s not much…” She begun. “But I hope that you know that I’m really glad that you’re back… I’ve really missed you…”       
“I thought you hated me…”              
“Yeah… me too.”  
Leah sat down on the couch, and Nikki sat down next to her. Leah handed her the card, but Nikki immediately put it away, and pulled her into a warm hug. They sat like that for a moment, until they moved away from each other slightly, so that they were facing each other. Without even having to say anything, they both moved in closer, as they shared a warm, sweet kiss. Leah moved her arms around Nikki, and Nikki moved in closer to her, moving over to her lap, and sliding her hand over her body, their bodies being in complete contact.  

When the kiss broke, they first looked at each other, both clearly surprised. Nikki bit her lip, and sat back on the couch, hands in her hair.              
“Sorry, I don’t know what that was. I don’t know what came over me.”  
Leah looked at her and smiled.         
“Me neither.”        
She leaned back in, and pushed Nikki on her back, kissing her deeply again. Leah ran her hand over Nikki's body, as she moved her head down, and kissed her neck. Nikki trembled slightly at the tingle of her touch, as she closed her eyes, and smiled. Leah kissed her again, wrapping her arms around her in a warm embrace. And then, exhausted, they fell asleep together on that couch. Everything was exactly like it should be… And both Nicole and Melorae, were home where they belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thank you so much for reading part my story! Please leave a comment, telling me what you thought, and if you'd like more. I already have some idea's for a sequel. Chapter 1 of that is now posted in the series I've uploaded, also titled: Young warrior. The new part is called: Running from your past. So please be sure to check it out!
> 
> And for those who liked my story: Thank you so much! I mostly just really enjoy writing, which is why I continued, but your approval makes it all the better. So thank you for that! Have a nice day!


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